PUTRAJAYA, June 4 — Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today said that the Home Ministry is investigating the source of a report claiming that 80 per cent of Malaysian border officials are corrupt.
He said the leak should not have happened as not even the police have been able to confirm the percentage of corrupt officials manning the country’s borders.
“We are tracing the person who had confirmed the report. Although I know the reporter who had gotten the information, this shouldn’t happen because even PDRM couldn’t confirm the percentage,” Zahid told reporters today after his ministry’s monthly gathering here.
Yesterday, local daily the New Straits Times cited the police’s Special Branch as claiming that 80 per cent of Malaysian law enforcement officers at the country’s borders were engaged in corruption, with some purportedly also on the smuggling syndicates’ payroll instead of merely taking bribes.
The claims by the police’s intelligence arm were purportedly based on surveillance and intelligence data collected over 10 years at border checkpoints manned by enforcement agencies such as the Immigration Department, Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency, the Anti-Smuggling Unit and the police’s General Operations Force.
Zahid said enforcement officers found to be involved in human trafficking activities are the lower ranking officers.
Last week, Deputy Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi said 12 police officers have been arrested over suspected collusion with human traffickers who used smuggling camps in Perlis as a transit point for migrants, adding that investigations are still ongoing to determine if they were directly involved or just facilitators.
This followed an earlier announcement on May 13, when the police confirmed that two local policemen were nabbed along with 36 others for alleged involvement in human trafficking activities in northern Malaysia and southern Thailand.
The duo are believed to have aided syndicate members obtain safe passage for their human cargo.
The recent discovery in Padang Besar, Perlis of nearly 140 mass graves and nearly 30 suspected people smuggling camps came after repeated denials of their existence by government officials.
