Kuala lumpur: The Immigration Department has arrested 468 foreigners for various immigration offences, in Op Gempur involving several raids here. The raids involving 547 members and immigration officers were carried out from 11 am to 2 pm today in four zones around the highlands involving business areas, construction sites, and vegetable farms.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, which participated in the operation, most of the foreigners were busy packing vegetables and were unaware of the presence of the authorities, causing them to not have time to escape. Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban stated that the raids were planned a month ago following complaints from the local community.
"Through the intelligence conducted, we found that this district has become a focus of foreigners to work in addition to being involved in agricultural activities in the surrounding areas," he said. The influx of foreigners in the highlands has been detected in recent years, causing concern among the local community.
Shaaban noted that the hilly terrain of the area and its distance from the city led foreigners to choose to come to the resort area, compounded by the attitude of local business owners who prefer to employ them. In the operation, a total of 1,886 foreigners were checked and 468 were detained for various immigration offences, including expired passes and lack of travel documents, with some presenting temporary work visit passes suspected to be fake.
"The foreigners detained involved 175 Myanmar nationals, 174 from Bangladesh, 67 from Indonesia, 20 from Nepal, 16 from Pakistan, 11 from India, and one each from the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, China, and Cambodia. They comprised 388 men, 76 women, and four children," Shaaban added.
According to him, all those detained are aged between 20 and 54 and will be sent to Immigration Detention Depots in Kelantan, Perak, and Selangor. According to arrest statistics, since the beginning of this year until Nov 18, a total of 83,994 foreigners have been detained nationwide in the department's efforts to combat the issue of illegal immigrants.