A suspected illegal migrant smuggling operation was uncovered after police raided several locations, including houses believed to have been used as transit points, in Selangor on Wednesday.
The operation, codenamed Ops Pintas, began at about 10pm with raids carried out at the waters off Sekinchan, Dataran Pantai Redang Sekinchan, as well as two houses located along Jalan Parit 8 Timur and Jalan Parit 1 Barat in Sungai Besar.
The raids, conducted by officers and personnel from the D7 Criminal Investigation Department of the Selangor Contingent Police Headquarters, resulted in the arrest of 12 individuals.
Those detained comprised a local Chinese man and 11 Indonesian nationals, including a woman.
Police also seized a licensed Class B wooden boat, six mobile phones and a boat licence book believed to be linked to the investigation.
Initial investigations found that the migrant smuggling syndicate was allegedly operated by Indonesian nationals, with migrants transported to a collection point around Sekinchan before being moved to transit houses.
A source said the migrants were later taken to designated jetties before being transferred onto fishing boats and moved out to sea to be handed over to larger vessels from Indonesia.
“To avoid detection by authorities, the syndicate would only transport one or two migrants during each boat trip. The migrants were also instructed to claim they were fishing boat crew members if stopped by enforcement personnel,” the source said.
The syndicate was believed to have used fishing jetties around Sekinchan as smuggling routes and charged about RM1,500 per migrant. The operation was suspected to have been active for around two months.
Selangor police chief Datuk Shazeli Kahar confirmed the arrests and said further investigations were ongoing.
He also urged members of the public with information regarding migrant smuggling activities to contact the Selangor Police Hotline at 03-2052 9999.
