Dedi syndicate busted in Johor, 11 nabbed for smuggling
PUTRAJAYA: The Immigration Department busted the Dedi syndicate involved in migrant smuggling activities in a special operation conducted around Johor yesterday
Its director-general, Datuk Zakaria Shaaban said nine Indonesians and two locals, aged between 25 and 47, were detained during a 10 pm operation in several areas, including Kukup, Skudai and Batu Pahat.
He said that after three weeks of intelligence gathering, authorities detained an Indonesian man suspected of being the mastermind, known as Dedi, along with two other Indonesian men believed to be tekongs (smuggling agents).
'The operations team also arrested two local women suspected of being 'transporters' and premises caretakers. Also detained were five Indonesian men and one Indonesian woman,' he said in a statement today.
He said that preliminary checks found that one Indonesian man had overstayed his visa, while the others lacked valid travel documents or permits to be in the country.
The operations team seized eight mobile phones, two Indonesian passports, RM1,173 in cash, a Naza Citra vehicle, and a boat believed to have been used for transporting illegal immigrants.
'The syndicate's modus operandi was to smuggle Indonesians in and out via sea routes to Johor or Indonesia, charging each migrant RM2,100 for the journey,' he said.
He said that the illegal immigrants brought in would be housed in a hotel used as a safe house to avoid detection by authorities before moving in or out of Malaysia.
'This syndicate is believed to have been operating for the past six months.
'The department is committed to combating human smuggling syndicates, to enforce the law, and safeguard the nation's security and sovereignty,' he also said.
Zakaria added that all those nabbed were sent to the Setia Tropika Immigration Depot here or further action.
The case is being investigated under Section 26A of the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act (ATIPSOM) 2007 and Section 6(3) of the Immigration Act 1959/63.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
22 minutes ago
- The Star
Vessel seized, crew held in Sabah for fishing too close to shore
KOTA KINABALU: A fishing vessel operating too close to shore has been seized for breaching maritime regulations, along with its catch of almost a tonne. Its captain and five crew members, all Indonesians, were also detained by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA), said Sabah Maritime director First Adm Mohd Khairulanuar Abd Majid @ Razali. He said in the Monday (June 2) raid, MMEA personnel were conducting patrols when they saw the vessel operating close to Tanjung Tembungo near here. 'Our team went to investigate and found that the vessel was fishing just about one nautical mile (1.85km) from shore, which is illegal,' he said on Wednesday (June 4). First Adm Khairulanuar said the suspects were detained while the vessel and its catch, worth an estimated RM45,000 in total, were confiscated and brought back to base for investigations under the Fisheries Act 1985. He said fishing too close to shore disrupted the livelihood of local fishermen and threatened marine ecosystems by destroying corals and the seabed. He said the MMEA would step up patrols and anti-crime operations at sea. He urged the public to report any suspicious activities at sea to the Sabah Maritime direct line at 088-270165, or the 999 emergency number.
Malay Mail
3 hours ago
- Malay Mail
Man arrested in France after Quran stolen, burned outside Lyon mosque
LYON, June 4 — A man suspected of stealing a Quran from a mosque near the French city of Lyon and then burning it was arrested on Tuesday evening, the public prosecutor's office said. He was arrested in the town of Villeurbanne, where the mosque was also located, and is said to be 'psychologically fragile', the prosecutor's office and a police source told AFP. On the night of Sunday to Monday, 'an individual with an uncovered face entered the prayer room, grabbed a copy of the Quran, set it on fire then dropped it outside the building before fleeing', the council of mosques in the Rhone region said. A police source said an investigation had begun into the incident. The Lyon prosecutor's office told AFP that police were looking into a case of 'damage or deterioration by means dangerous to people, committed on the grounds of race, ethnicity, nation or religion'. The incident came after a man who had posted racist videos shot dead his Tunisian neighbour and badly wounded a Turkish man in the southern town of Puget-sur-Argens on Saturday. The suspected killer, a Frenchman born in 1971, fled the scene in a car but was arrested not far away after his partner alerted police. According to Le Parisien newspaper, the suspect said he 'swore allegiance to the French flag' and called on the French to 'shoot' people of foreign origin in one of his videos posted on social media. Anti-terrorism prosecutors have taken over the investigation into the case, the first such racist attack linked to the far right to be dealt with as 'terrorism' since their office was set up in 2019. In a separate incident in April, a man stabbed a Malian man to death in a mosque, a case being handled by regional prosecutors. France is home to the largest Muslim community in the European Union, as well as the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States. There has also been a rise in reported attacks against members of France's Jewish community since Palestinian group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023 and the Israeli military responded with a devastating military offensive on the Gaza Strip. France's Holocaust memorial and three Paris synagogues and a restaurant were vandalised with paint overnight on Saturday. A Turkish-born man who burned a Quran in London was on Monday found guilty of a religiously aggravated public order offence. Sweden has seen a series of burnings of the Islamic holy book, most notably by Iraqi Christian Salwan Momika. He was shot dead in January. — AFP
New Straits Times
3 hours ago
- New Straits Times
Wilders: firebrand 'Dutch Trump' gambles for power
SOMETIMES known as the "Dutch Trump" both for his bouffant dyed hair and firebrand rhetoric, Geert Wilders' anti-Islam, anti-immigrant and anti-EU message has catapulted him to the brink of power. From calling Moroccans "scum" to holding competitions for cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, Wilders has built a career from his self-appointed mission to stop an "Islamic invasion" of the West. He has remained defiant despite brushes with the law – he was convicted for insulting Moroccans – and death threats that have kept him under police protection since 2004. Now his latest political gamble has collapsed the coalition government he agreed to, in the hope of finally realising his ambition to become Dutch prime minister. After years in the political wilderness, the 61-year-old made his breakthrough in 2023, stunning Europe with a surprise election win. His far-right Freedom Party (PVV) took 37 seats in the 150-seat parliament, handily beating the more established Green/Left and liberal VVD parties. He toned down his anti-immigration rhetoric during the campaign, even saying during the last election debate there were "bigger problems than fighting against the flood of asylum seekers and immigrants." Wilders vowed to put his anti-Islam outbursts "in the freezer" as the price for taking up residence in the "Little Tower", as the prime minister's office in The Hague is known. But his coalition partners had other ideas. The Dutch political system is based on consensus, meaning no one party can dominate, and two of the four party leaders were queasy at the thought of Wilders leading the country. He reluctantly stepped aside to clinch a coalition deal, writing on X: "The love for my country and voters is bigger and more important than my own position." After rollercoaster talks, the four parties agreed on Dick Schoof as a compromise PM, with a mandate to introduce the "strictest-ever" asylum policy seen in the country. But Wilders' ambitions were unsated and he frequently voiced his desire to become premier. He also again ramped up his anti-Islam rhetoric. "Walk the streets of Western Europe... and you will see that it often looks like a mediaeval Arab city, full of headscarves and burqas," he alleged in a recent speech. "Islam is rising but I do not want Islam to rise... for Islam and freedom are incompatible." Born in 1963 in southern Venlo, close to the German border, Wilders grew up in a Catholic family with his brother and two sisters. His mother was half-Indonesian, a fact Wilders rarely mentions. He developed an interest in politics in the 1980s, his older brother Paul told Der Spiegel magazine. "He was neither clearly on the left or the right at the time, nor was he xenophobic. But he was fascinated by the political game, the struggle for power and influence," Paul Wilders said. His hatred of Islam appeared to have developed slowly. He spent time in Israel on a kibbutz, witnessing first-hand tensions with the Palestinians. He also voiced shock at the assassinations of far-right leader Pim Fortuyn in 2002 and the radical anti-Islam filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004. When he heard the news of Van Gogh's murder: "I remember my legs were shaking with shock and indignation," he wrote in a 2012 book. "I can honestly say that I felt anger, not fear." Wilders entered politics in 1998 in the VVD party. During his early days in politics he started dying his brown hair blonde and learnt his media-savvy ways. Over the years he vowed not to be silenced, despite being convicted of insulting Moroccan-Dutch citizens. In 2006 he quit the VVD to found his own party and in 2017 it became the second largest in parliament, falling back to third largest in 2021. By tapping into a seam of Dutch discontent, Wilders also managed to push the political discourse in the Netherlands to the right. But Wilders also cut an isolated figure. He was married to a Hungarian woman but they had no children. When not posting anti-Islamic invective on his one social media account, he posted pictures of their cats on another. His party consisted of just one person: himself. And his security meant he had little contact with the outside world. "Geert's world has become very small," his brother told Der Spiegel. "It consists of the parliament, public events and his apartment. He can hardly go anywhere else."
