KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 25 — A 59-year-old man believed to be a member of the ‘Mamak Gang’ was shot dead, while a friend was injured in the waist in a shootout with police in Taman Melawati here today.

Following the shootout, police recovered several axes, parang and 15 false car licence plates in the car they were in.

Selangor CID chief Datuk Mohd Adnan Abdullah said the incident happened at 1.30pm after a team in a patrol car became suspicious of the duo who were in a Volkswagen car.

“Police intercepted their car on finding it had false licence plates. However, the driver to ram the patrol car while trying to shoot the policemen.

“In defending themselves, the policemen shot back in their direction. The driver was hit and died at the scene,” he told reporters here today.

Mohd Adnan said the injured man was sent to the Ampang Hospital and that police were trying to establishh whether he was involved in any crimes.

One of the policemen was also injured in both wrists.

Investigations showed the dead suspect had 24 past criminal records, and was on the wanted list for robbery, burglary and theft.

The body of the suspect, who was from Grik, Perak, was sent to Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (HUKM).

The Mamak Gang is a notorious Malaysian gang that has been active since the early 1990s. Originally they specialised in breaking into factories and warehouses, but eventually they switched to mainly carjackings and robbing motorists.

The gang is most notorious for stealing RM12 million worth of gold bars from the Malaysia Airlines cargo complex at the former Subang Airport on Merdeka Day 1994 (31 August 1994).

Although its key members were rounded up by the police several times and sentenced to either preventive detention or banished to remote areas of the country, they managed to run their “criminal empire” from detention by using mobile phones and couriers to deliver instructions for them.

The gang’s crime spree was supposed to have come to an end in December 2006 when Selangor police arrested the last three members of the gang still at large. — Bernama