MELAKA: A prestigious hotel here has been found hiring illegal immigrants as staff during a raid by the Melaka Immigration Department.
The department's state director Anirwan Fauzee Mohd Aini said 13 of these foreigners were arrested during an operation on Tuesday (May 16).
"The foreigners claimed that they were locals when my officers approached them during the raid at the hotel in Taman Melaka Raya here.
"We screened 41 of the hotel's foreign workers and discovered 13 of them had violated work permits and overstayed in the country," he said on Wednesday (May 17).
Anirwan Fauzee said the hotel had hired the immigrants to work in the housekeeping department, restaurant and kitchen staff.
"Some of these hotel workers without proper documents tried to flee and hid themselves when the officers conducted the raid.
"We managed to screen all of them," he said.
Anirwan Fauzee said during the operation, which started at 9am and ended at 11pm, seven more illegals were detained at a food court, a car wash and a foreign workers' quarters here.
He said the nationalities of those detained are 17 Indonesians, two Myanmarese and one Bangladeshi.
"We screened a total of 70 foreigners throughout the duration of the operation.
"There were also illegals who acted aggressively when my officers confronted them," he added.
