POLICE, the Sabah General Operations Force and the Sabah Veterinary Services Department (DVS) in Sandakan last night busted a syndicate suspected of smuggling frozen food, estimated to be worth RM2.7 million, from unrecognised foreign plants.

Police Internal Security and Public Order Department deputy director (movement) Mohd Hishamudin Tahar said police seized 9,782 boxes containing various chicken parts during a raid in a light industrial area.

“Nine people – five local men and four foreign men – were inspected in the raid. The case will be investigated under the Sabah Animal Welfare Enactment 2015.

Police were “committed to combating the smuggling of untaxed goods and the misappropriation of controlled and subsidised items so the country’s revenue is always protected”, Hishamudin told reporters after inspecting the seized goods today.

Hishamudin said since January this year, his department’s Wildlife Crime Bureau conducted eight raids in Sabah and two in Sarawak in a probe into a frozen food smuggling syndicate, with an estimated seizure value of RM44.2 million.

State DVS director Normah Yusop said: “We suspect the goods (chicken meat) were imported from unrecognised plants in China, Australia, Denmark and Poland that do not have a halal certification.”

She said the food was bound for the local market and several Philippine islands. – Bernama, September 28, 2023.