The issue of Malaysian identity cards being sold to foreigners has cropped up again.
In Malacca, a syndicate is said to be selling fake MyKads to many foreigners for prices ranging from RM4,500 to RM10,000.
According to a report in The Star, which carried out an undercover operation, the mastermind offering MyKads to illegal immigrants and foreigners who overstay claimed to have worked at the National Registration Department (NRD) for 10 years.
He reportedly said that while at the NRD he had helped many Indonesians and Cambodians get MyKads.
A reporter from The Star, pretending to be an applicant, spoke to the man following a tip-off from non-profit welfare and social organisation Perbak.
Perbak had revealed that the parents of a 17-year-old boy from Johor, Mohd Heril Abdullah, had obtained a fake birth certificate for him via an “agent” in 2000.
Mohd Heril then used this certificate to successfully apply for a Malaysian passport in 2011 to travel to Indonesia, The Star reported.
However, his MyKad application was rejected by the NRD in 2012 and he was detained for a discrepancy detected in his birth certificate, it added.
Perbak president Muhammad Khairul Hafiz was quoted as saying he had heard of dozens of foreigners who had bought citizenships for a sum between RM5,000 and RM10,000.
Khairul said he had tracked down a few Indonesians who had tried to buy MyKads and citizenship papers from the syndicate.
The report stated a 42-year-old Indonesian woman said she was among 15 Indonesians who had tried to secure citizenship illegally.
She led The Star’s reporter and Khairul to Senai, Johor, to meet two others who had allegedly paid money but did not get their promised citizenship from agents of the mastermind.
The woman later led the reporters to meet one of the agents at a housing estate in Senai.
The Star reporter pretended to be an interested buyer and obtained the phone number of the mastermind from the agent.
The reporter then got in touch with the mastermind by pretending to be an Indonesian interested in obtaining citizenship papers and a MyKad. The reporter recorded the phone conversations between them.
The man boasted that he had obtained genuine citizenship documents and MyKads illegally for many Indonesians and Cambodians while serving at the NRD, said the report.
The reporter was asked to pay RM4,500 for the citizenship application. The man offered to give a discount if the “applicant” could find more customers.
The reporter was told to provide him with four photographs and fill up a citizenship application form from the NRD.
When the reporter turned down the deal, according to the report, the man tried to persuade the reporter to have a face-to-face meeting and submit the citizenship documents, claiming that Putrajaya would fast-track the application.
The reporter did not pursue the matter further.
The Star reported that it had also received a call from a reader claiming that a foreigner who had been in Malaysia for less than a year had been going around Masjid Tanah showing off what looked like a genuine MyKad.
Recently, Parti Warisan Sabah (Warisan) leader Darell Leiking had called for “extreme vetting” of MyKad applicants in Sabah, saying only genuine Sabahans should be given citizenship.
Leiking had the infamous “Projek IC” in mind when making the call.
In the 1990s, “Projek IC” resulted in many identity cards being issued to illegal immigrants. A royal commission found that many foreigners had, indeed, been given MyKads by NRD staff.
Meanwhile, in Kota Kinabalu, two NRD staff were arrested for allegedly demanding RM2,000 from a Malaysian to help process identity cards for his twin daughters.
The Star reported that the two Semporna-based NRD staff – a 45-year-old man and 40-year-old woman – were arrested separately by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on Wednesday.
The report said the duo were arrested after they had allegedly received the RM2,000 from the victim in two pay-offs.
MACC officials, however, are puzzled as to why the two had allegedly demanded a bribe as the father and his daughters are Malaysians.
The two suspects have been remanded for five days. - the Star
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