SEPTEMBER 15 — “We have to work together as these syndicates know no borders and work under the assumption that the agencies of each country work separately,” said Malaysia’s newly minted Director of the Federal Narcotics Crime Investigation Department (NCID), Datuk Hussein Omar Khan, while unveiling his aspirations to tackle “worrying drug trends” in Malaysia last week. 

Let’s talk about it then. Parliament data from August 2025 revealed that 68 Malaysians have been sentenced to death abroad for drug trafficking, with 26 of them in China and 23 of them in Indonesia, with the others spread across Brunei, Laos, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. In January 2025, Parliament also confirmed that there are 40 death row prisoners convicted of drug trafficking, and 27 foreign nationals on death row in Malaysia. Beyond that, there were over 44,000 investigations conducted between January 2024 and June 2025 for the offences of drug trafficking and murder (and historically, drug trafficking convictions far outweigh other offences). 

It is notable that despite these numbers, the Royal Malaysian Police (PDRM) sought international cooperation in only three drug cases between January and June 2025, while highlighting that there has been “good cooperation” between the authorities and those from Japan, Korea, Australia, the United States, Thailand, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, and New Zealand (peculiarly omitting Indonesia, Brunei, Laos, Singapore, and Vietnam, where there remains Malaysians convicted for drug trafficking). 

Based on the dozens of Malaysians abroad and foreign nationals at home who have been convicted of drug trafficking, one can only assume that Datuk Hussein is right: drug syndicates “know no borders”. This should ideally mean that we have consistent, longstanding cooperation with all of these countries to identify and dismantle syndicates (and not merely convict persons arrested with drugs in Malaysia). 

However, our current predicament says otherwise. Cases such as Pannir Selvam A/L Pranthaman, which involved Johor-Singapore drug trafficking operations as reported by his family to PDRM in 2018 and 2023, have yet to be investigated in a cross-border manner. In another case, Herlina Purnama Sari, an Indonesian single mother, remains in Kajang Prison today for her drug trafficking conviction, though her recruiter had already been convicted by the Indonesian Supreme Court in 2014. This was never investigated alongside the Indonesian authorities before Herlina was sentenced to death by the Federal Court in 2016. 

How do we remedy this situation? How is it possible that there have only been a handful of drug cases that involved international cooperation, when we have hundreds of people convicted for drug trafficking both at home and abroad? 

Drug syndicates thrive on the way they exploit the weak and vulnerable. It is often the desperate and the needy who are recruited as drug couriers, and they are more likely than not recruited via human trafficking tactics. Dismantling drug syndicates means we should recognise their vulnerabilities and protect them from exploitation, while directing our resources towards identifying the trafficking networks behind these couriers.

Malaysia is a party to the Asean Convention against Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (ACTIP). We are also part of the Asean Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which provides the framework for States to cooperate in investigating and prosecuting transnational crimes (i.e., cases such as Pannir and Herlina). Beyond that, we ratified the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime (UNTOC) and its Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Palermo Protocol) as early as 2009. 

The frameworks and mechanisms are the tools for PDRM. Strategic use of these mechanisms and a holistic approach to addressing the drug trade are critical for the success of Datuk Hussein’s goals of eradicating cross-border drug trafficking. 

We have demonstrated our capacity and willingness to recognise and protect victims of syndicates by participating in regional cooperation; in fact, we rescued victims of a scam centre from Cambodia earlier this year. We also have the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (Atipsom), which contains a formal victim identification and referral process. These efforts are consistent with the aims of the ACTIP and the Palermo Protocol; we can, in essence, treat deception, coercion, and abuse of vulnerabilities as indicators of trafficking when it comes to online scam syndicates. 

Unfortunately, this approach has yet to be applied to drug trafficking that Datuk Hussein plans to address. Based on Hayat’s observations in dozens of transnational drug cases, including Pannir and Herlina, there have been no signs of Malaysia initiating Mutual Legal Assistance requests to either Singapore or Indonesia to identify and dismantle the networks behind Pannir and Herlina. 

When drug syndicates “know no borders”, our justice system must also stop operating within the borders of convenience. Malaysia already has the laws, treaties, conventions (Atipsom, MLAT, ACTIP, Palermo Protocol), and precedents in place for rescuing online scam victims at our disposal. What is missing, Datuk Hussein, is our willingness to apply them to drug cases the same way we have done for online scam cases.

* Tham Jia Vern leads research at Hayat, a Kuala Lumpur-based organisation committed to advocating for rehabilitative and restorative justice, with a focus on decarceration, drug policy reform, and the total abolition of the death penalty in Malaysia.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.