SERIAN: Two human smuggling attempts here were thwarted by the General Operations Force (GOF) over the weekend.
Sarawak GOF commander SAC Mancha Ata said the first attempt took placed last Saturday (Jan 30) around 7pm in Jalan Serian-Sri Aman.
A GOF team carrying out Ops Benteng Covid, spotted a suspicious vehicle on the road.
They stopped it for inspection and found four Indonesian men aged between 25 and 45 inside.
“Further inspection found that one of them, who is the driver and suspected to be an agent (tekong), had valid travel document while the others did not.
“They were handed over to the Serian police headquarters for further action,” said SAC Mancha.
The next day (Jan 31) around 9am, a GOF team stopped a suspicious vehicle in Tebedu, near the Malaysia-Indonesia border.
The team found six individuals inside and the driver produced a CMCO (conditional movement control order) letter of permission to the team.
It was found that the driver was only instructed by the vehicle owner to pick up four Indonesians in Tebedu and send them to Serian.
“As a result, two locals suspected to be ‘tekong’ aged 30 and 50, were arrested along with the Indonesians – three women and a man aged between 23 and 32.”
They were handed over to the Tebedu police station for further action.
The cases are being investigated under Section 15 of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants (Atipsom) Act 2007, Section 6(1)of the Immigration Act 1959 (Act 155) and the Infectious Disease Prevention and Control Act 1988 (Act 342).
