Immigration officer caught napping, 12 foreign passports in his pants

Immigration officer caught napping, 12 foreign passports in his pants

B Nantha Kumar
Published: Feb 19, 2025 9:00 AM
Updated: 1:19 PM


Summary

• A KLIA immigration officer was found asleep with 12 foreign passports hidden in his waistband.

• He is allegedly involved in a passport syndicate but purportedly faced minimal disciplinary action.

• Alleged corruption at KLIA is linked to weak punishments and low government salaries.

An immigration officer was caught napping with 12 foreign passports tucked inside his waistband.

According to a police report dated Jan 7, an immigration officer said she spotted her colleague sleeping in the meeting room of the Terminal 2 operations office at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).

“Since it was not break time and was close to the shift change at 7.30am, I decided to wake the officer. Upon arriving at the meeting room, I found the officer lying on a chair in full immigration uniform.

“Since the uniform was not worn properly, I noticed a book resembling a passport tucked into the waistband of the officer’s pants. I immediately woke the officer and conducted an initial inspection. As a result, I found 12 passports from various countries hidden in the waistband.

“I then took the passports and reported the matter to the head of immigration at Terminal 2,” read the police report sighted by Malaysiakini.

When contacted, KLIA district police chief Azman Shari’at confirmed the report was lodged.

“The case has been referred to the Immigration Department for further action,” he said.

However, Immigration Department sources told Malaysiakini the officer was allegedly let off with a slap on the wrist.

Malaysiakini has repeatedly contacted the Immigration Department for comment but has yet to receive a response.

According to sources, the 29-year-old officer was purportedly transferred to the KLIA detention depot but has yet to report for work.

“He is still involved in passport ‘fly’ activities, where he collects passports from agents and hands them over to immigration officers at KLIA to be entered into the system and stamped.

“He receives around 30 passports from a Pakistani agent daily, with each ‘fly’ passport allegedly fetching RM1,400,” said a source from Putrajaya’s immigration office.

“Fly” refers to a syndicate operation that manipulates entry and exit records to “clean” overstayers’ statuses or remove blacklist records for foreign nationals through fraudulent passport stamps.

Previously, immigration officers involved in such activities would smuggle out an official stamp, meet the agent at a designated location, and stamp all the passports provided by the agent in exchange for money.

However, now the officers take the passports to the counter, stamp them, and then return them to the agent.

‘Corruption and KLIA are inseparable’

A former KLIA staff member told Malaysiakini that the airport is an alleged “goldmine” for syndicates.

“Corruption and KLIA are inseparable. In fact, I can say that almost every day, there are various syndicates operating, such as those involving foreign nationals and gold smuggling.

“KLIA is not immune to migrant worker syndicates and corruption. Even though the government and enforcement agencies like MACC have taken various measures to combat corruption, they have failed,” the former staff said on condition of anonymity.

Having worked at KLIA and several other airports for over two decades, he pointed out two key reasons why corruption remains rampant at KLIA.

“First, government officers are not afraid of punishment. Most of the time, those found guilty are only subjected to disciplinary action, such as being transferred to another department.

“Secondly, low salaries among government employees. Just imagine - what job opportunities does a low-ranking immigration officer have after retirement?

“The only thing he knows is immigration work. So naturally, he will try to make money by becoming a middle-person,” he added.