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Friday, September 19, 2014

More senior Customs officers including a Datuk to be ARRESTED soon

More senior Customs officers including a Datuk to be ARRESTED soon
KUALA LUMPUR - AT least 16 more senior Customs officers, including a state director with the title “Datuk”, are expected to be picked up soon in connection with alleged smuggling of contraband items worth hundreds of millions of ringgit in unpaid duties.
Sources told the New Straits Times that the Datuk and other officers were believed to have been in cahoots with a syndicate which had been paying each officer “protection money” from as low as RM2,000 up to over RM10,000 every month for years.
It is said the payment made to the officers depend on their ranks. The more senior the officers, the more protection money they would be paid, sources said.
Early this month, 12 Customs officers, including a state director, were arrested by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission to assist in investigations into corrupt transactions in protecting the smuggling syndicate and an abuse of facilities in the Port Klang Free Zone.
Apart from the arrests, MACC also seized an undisclosed amount of cash from several individuals and the goods smuggled from the warehouse at the port.
MACC believes the arrests have successfully defeated the mastermind behind the largest cigarettes and alcohol smuggling syndicate which evaded customs duties at the port, with losses amounting to RM4 billion.
The smuggled goods were intended mainly for the local market, though some were smuggled into Thailand and Singapore. Investigations revealed that the goods came from Scotland, Sweden, Indonesia, Thailand, China, India and Cambodia.
One of the 12 arrested earlier, however, had been granted unconditional release by the magistrate’s court recently.
Sources said at least five officers were expected to be brought to court tomorrow to face corruption-related charges.
The Customs director arrested earlier was nabbed in Ipoh on Sept 3, had served in his position for about a year, following a stint as a director in a southern state. The rest were picked up in the Klang Valley.
The arrests were the result of more than a year of MACC’s intelligence-gathering on the suspects.
Recently, MACC deputy chief commissioner (prevention) Datuk Mustafar Ali said MACC was inspecting the Customs Department’s system and procedures on enforcement and management of tax free goods following the arrests of the officers.
The inspection was the largest operation after the Op 3B in 2010 to ensure the Customs system and enforcement is conducted effectively and to prevent corruption by irresponsible parties, he had said.
He also said MACC was confident that with this action, the Customs’ system and procedures will be improved and will put an end to its personnel going wayward.
The commission had held a corruption risk management workshops with Customs in six zones — northern, southern, eastern, central, Sabah and Sarawak earlier this year. The workshops focused on the enforcement system and procedures on goods entry and exit via the main gateways such as ports, border and airports. -NST

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