Kajang: The Immigration Department (JIM) has detained nine individuals in Kajang, Selangor, for suspected involvement in a syndicate smuggling migrants out of the country. Immigration director-general Datuk Zakaria Shaaban announced that the arrests, carried out last Friday, involved five Indonesian men, two Indonesian women, and a local married couple who acted as transporters.

According to BERNAMA News Agency, enforcement officers also seized four Indonesian passports, seven mobile phones, RM1,455 in cash, and a Perodua Alza believed to have been used in the operations. Checks revealed that two of the Indonesians had overstayed their visas, while five others had no valid documents. Zakaria noted that the syndicate, known as ‘Takor,’ had been active for the past two months, targeting undocumented Indonesians in the Klang Valley who wished to return home.

The local couple allegedly posed as e-hailing drivers to transport the migrants to a safehouse, where they waited until boats arrived to take them across via illegal jetties. The syndicate charged between RM1,500 and RM2,000 per person for the service. The case is being investigated under the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (ATIPSOM) 2007 and the Immigration Act 1959/63.

In a separate case, JIM arrested a 32-year-old Bangladeshi woman, the owner of the ‘Key Malaysia’ website, for allegedly defrauding foreigners applying for eVISA. Zakaria stated that the suspect charged two to three times the normal rate and used a website that closely resembled JIM’s official eVISA portal. Preliminary checks found that the site had received 52,672 applications, with fees ranging from RM300 to RM500 each. The syndicate is believed to have been operating since 2022.