IPOH, September 27 — The owner of a fish processing cold storage business in Hutan Melintang has been arrested for stealing electricity for the facility, Perak police said.
Perak police chief Datuk Mohd Yusri Hassan Basri said the 31-year-old man was arrested in the operation conducted by the D4 Bukit Aman team and Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) on September 26 at around 12.30pm.
“This premise was suspected to have used electricity illegally through the connection and modification of wires in the TNB electricity substation room.
“During the raid, the police found out that there was a short circuit on the duplicate current circuit S1 and S2 for all three phases on the transformer terminals using foreign wires,” he said.
Mohd Yusri said that the estimated loss from 2019 experienced by TNB due to the power theft was RM1.3 million, adding that this was the most so far in Perak for this offence.
“By right the electricity bill for the premise should be around RM90,000 per month based on the business operation, but due to the modifications, the owner was only being paying RM15,000 a month,” he said.
He said the suspect will be remanded for four days and has no criminal records.
In the same operation, Mohd Yusri said police also arrested 57 foreign workers — 16 men and 41 women — for not possessing valid travelling documents.
“The 16 men include 12 Myanmar nationals, three Indonesian and one Bangladeshi, while the 41 women comprising of 33 Myanmar nationals, three Vietnamese and five Indonesian,” he said.
He said that all the foreigners were remanded for two weeks starting from September 27 to October 10.
The case is being investigated under Section 427 of the Penal Code, which carries imprisonment for two years or fine or both, and Section 37 (3) Electricity Supply Act 1990, which carries fine not more than RM100,000 or three years’ imprisonment or both.
It is also being investigated under Section 56 (1) (d) of the Immigration Act 1959/1963, which carries a fine up to RM50,000 or imprisonment up to five years and whipping not more than six times.
