RM1b pocketed?

SEPANG: Immigration Department personnel involved in sabotaging the Malaysian Immigration System (myIMMs) may have made over RM1 billion through their illegal activities.
"I believe that since more than 100 officers were involved in these activities, they may have made over RM1 billion ... but it's only my guess," Immigration director-general Datuk Seri Sakib Kusmi told a press conference at the KL International Airport today.
Giving details of departmental action taken against immigration officers for sabotaging myIMMs, Sakib said:
» 15 have been sacked since February;
» 14 have been suspended from work;
» 8 have had their salary increments frozen;
» 20 are under close scrutiny by the department;
» 63 have been transferred out of the department's headquarters; and
» more officers serving at international airports will be transferred out.
"Some of the officers have been in service for about 15 years, but the surprising thing is that some of them have only been with the department for six months," said Sakib, adding that the sabotaging activity started in 2010.
He said while the department's intelligence unit was aware of the sabotage, it did not realise how huge it had become.
"The situation worsened from 2013 with more and more officers getting involved in the sabotage activities, resulting in a threat to national security as well costing the government millions of ringgit in losses," he said.
"In 2014 and 2015, the department found gadgets belonging to human trafficking rings in its offices," he said, adding that some of the sacked officers were believed to be involved with such syndicates.
Sakib said investigations revealed that the officers involved received their instructions from overseas and everything was done online, adding that they had manipulated the department's system from outside as they were allowed access to it.
He said officers had on occasion noticed the cursor on a computer moving without anyone operating it, adding that this was what had enabled the traffickers to bypass immigration systems.
"Due to the myIMMs being sabotaged, we really do not know how many people were allowed into the country by these rogue officers" he said, admitting too that there was a possibility that even terrorists may have slipped in because of this.
"We simply do not know," he reiterated.
Sakib said as an immediate counter-measure, the department is reviewing its Director-General's Standing Orders (DGSO) as well as the standard operating procedures (SOP) to curb the misuse of power and sabotage by the department's officers.
Among the first counter measures will be the implementation of the "snake queue" system at the arrival and departure hall of KLIA so that arriving passengers queue up in a single line and randomly go to whichever counter is free to be processed by the officer there, instead of the current practice where they can choose which queue to stand in and hence choose the officer they want to be processed by.
Making it random will eliminate or reduce the chances of an arriving passenger being processed by an officer who is in cahoots with human trafficking syndicates.