GEORGE TOWN: A Sri Lankan teenager’s attempt to fraudulently obtain a Malaysian passport was foiled by alert Immigration officers at the Komtar Urban Transformation Centre (UTC).
Penang Immigration director Nur Zulfa Ibrahim said the youth, who presented himself as a 10-year-old boy, was accompanied by a local woman claiming to be his mother.
She said the supervisor on duty on Wednesday suspected that the boy was much older and noted that he found it difficult to cope with questions, Bernama reported.
Subsequently, the head of the office conducted a preliminary investigation into the youth and the woman.
It was discovered that the youth could not speak Malay.
In a statement yesterday, Nur Zulfa said the language spoken by the youth was also not the same as the Tamil language spoken here. She said upon further questioning, the woman confessed that she was not the boy’s mother, with the teenager revealing that he was in fact a Sri Lankan citizen.
Nur Zalfa said the woman told Immigration officers that she had been paid a sum of money for her involvement in the cheating attempt.
The woman and the boy were detained under the Passport Act 1966 for investigation and further action by the department, she added.
Nur Zulfa commended the vigilance of the Immigration officer on duty, saying this underscored the department’s commitment to upholding its responsibilities.
