IMMIGRATION officers in Johor will investigate the possibility of insiders working with a forgery gang picked up in a raid in Senai on Saturday.

Johor director Baharuddin Tahir said the techniques used by the gang showed that they were skilled in the use of ICT equipment and systems.

He said the gang appeared to have been supplying demand for foreign labour in, for example, construction during the recovery conditional movement control.

“So, this is indeed in tandem with the demand and supply,” he told a press conference in Johor Baru today.

Baharuddin said the gang was led by an Indonesian man only known as Bagas, 38, who had been working in Malaysia for seven years using a valid work permit.

The gang was also believed to be charging between RM120 and RM250 for each document falsified with their target market being Indonesian passport holders.

“During the raid, we also seized 23 Covid-19/SARS-CoV-2 examination certificates from a private hospital and 18 Malaysian Immigration i-JIM cards, suspected to be fake, but we believe maybe more documents could have been forged than were found,” he said.

Besides Bagas, Baharuddin said another three Indonesians, including Bagas’s wife and a customer, were detained in the same raid. All four of them were remanded for 14 days from July 19.

The case was being investigated under Section 55 and 56 of the Immigration Act 1959/63, and Section 12 of the Passports Act 1966, he said.

In a separate development, Baharuddin said the department would not compromise, fully assisting in the investigation of immigration officers suspected of complicity with migrant smuggling gangs.

“In Johor, all officers and personnel are subject to the rules on disciplinary conduct, and an internal investigation will be conducted,” he said. – July 20, 2020.