FAKE Malaysian identities are being used to smuggle people from other Asian countries into Australia, ABC News reported.

The Malaysian passport is favoured for entry into Australia as it is easier to get through security with it than other nationalities, the report said.

An estimated 10,500 people from Malaysia are in Australia unlawfully, it added, noting that this was more than people from any other country.

Malaysia is one of only eight countries whose citizens can apply for an Electronic Travel Authority visa online, which can be obtained in a few hours.

This ease of entry into Australia becomes available to citizens of other Asean countries if they obtain a fake Malaysian passport, which can cost “as little as A$1,300 (RM3,850)”, ABC News quoted security expert Andrin Raj as saying.

Australian Border Force Commissioner (ABF) Roman Quaedvlieg said this had raised concerns that extremists from Indonesia and the Philippines were entering Australia using fake Malaysian identification.

ABF said the number of “unlawful” Malaysians in Australia had doubled since 2015, but would not give a historical breakdown of figures.

It said the number of overstayers was “relatively static” at about 63,000.

ABC News also said Australian home affairs officers were “increasingly turning away Malaysian passport holders”, especially in Melbourne.

This followed a trend in which those with Malaysian identities would re-enter Australia using a passport with a slightly different name just months after being deported for working illegally, and fingerprints taken showed they were the same person.

ABC News highlighted the case of a Vietnamese man who was trapped in Malaysia for five months while waiting for “documents”. He was promised a job in Australia on the condition that he travel through Malaysia first.

The Vietnamese man, identified only as Tran, was stuck in Malaysia with 37 countrymen from March to August. They were kept in a hotel and made to surrender their passports, purportedly for document processing.

Tran told ABC News that the syndicate told him they had “a way” for him to travel to Australia legally. But after months of waiting, he convinced the smugglers to hand over his passport and returned to Vietnam.

Tran said each person had to pay the smugglers about A$50,000. – September 16, 2018.