He said the penalties were meted out since February to these 37 officers who included those working at major entry points into the country, information technology staff and officers working with the vendor of the system.
Some of them had joined the department just six months earlier while others had worked for up to 15 years,” he told a press conference at the KL International Airport here today.
Asked whether the officers would be prosecuted for misuse of authority, he said that would depend on the investigation conducted by the police.
Sakib said about 20 more officers suspected to have been involved in the sabotage were under observation and subjected to an internal investigation by the department.
He also said that 63 officers at various levels had been transferred, and the department would implement a large-scale transfer exercise at KLIA to restrict the activity.
Sakib said the departmental probe found that the sabotage had begun in 2010 and involved a network masterminded by syndicates from abroad that made use of Malaysians, among them immigration officers.
The sabotage became increasingly apparent in 2014 and caused millions of ringgit in losses to the government and posed a threat to national security, he said.
“The syndicate hacked or breached our system with the help of the involved immigration officers and it was able to control the movement of anyone entering or leaving the country,” he said.
Sakib also said that the internal probe showed up in 2014 and 2015 several pieces of equipment used by the syndicate.
He said that to improve immigration screening at KLIA, the department installed a ‘snake queue’ at the arrival and departure halls and reviewed the standard operating procedures to curb abuse of power and violation of integrity among the officers.
The installation of the snake queue was most important to filter foreigners entering the country, especially in curbing those involved in human trafficking or terrorism, he said.
Last Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said about 100 people, among them immigration officers and syndicate members, were under investigation by the authorities for suspected sabotage of the myIMMs system.
He said police intelligence and the Immigration Department found that the syndicate sabotaged the system for between six months and two years by leaking data including using certain code numbers for the abuse.
The first series of the Auditor-General’s Report of 2015 stated that the myIMMs developed to support the major operations of the Immigration Department was less satisfactory and impaired the objective. — Bernama
