PUTRAJAYA: Some other authorities may have been involved in the abuse of the Foreign Visa System (VLN) to bring in Bangladeshi nationals to work in Malaysia, says Tan Sri Azam Baki.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) chief commissioner said they were not discounting this possibility and are looking into it.
“We are not ruling out the possible involvement of some authorities,” he told reporters after launching the use of body-worn cameras by MACC enforcement personnel yesterday.
To date, MACC has arrested three Immigration officers stationed at the Malaysian High Commission in Dhaka and a high-ranking executive from a foreign workers company in connection with the issuance of visas.
Azam said his officers were in the midst of following the trail of money paid by Bangladeshis to obtain tourist visas, which they used to enter Malaysia to find employment, adding that the hawala system might have been used in this.
Hawala is a system of money transfers using an ‘underground’ method that does not involve official banking or financial systems.
When asked, Azam said the two Immigration officers arrested earlier this year had not been charged yet as investigations are still ongoing.
On whether the officers had been sacked or suspended from duty, he said it was for the Immigration Department to decide.
In April, the MACC arrested two Immigration officers under a special operation codenamed Ops Taka.
The agency also froze 20 accounts and assets estimated to be worth RM3.1mil.
The third officer and the managing director of a foreign workers company whom investigators believe to have accepted bribes totalling over RM100mil, were arrested on July 27.
Their modus operandi was to abuse the VLN system by approving visa applications – for a payment of between US$300 and US$500 (RM1,350 and RM2,250) – to bring in workers in the guise of tourists.
The two, who were remanded for four days until yesterday, had their remand order extended for two more days.
On the rare earth elements (REE) mining case in Kedah, Azam said that aside from probing into corruption and power abuse, the agency was looking into weaknesses in systems and procedures, which could have led to abuse.
“We also still have many more witnesses that need to be called to help us in the probe,” he said, adding that the number of those arrested remained at four.
The MACC has opened investigations into allegations of power abuse over the issue of REE mining, believed to have been conducted illegally.
