Court extends remand on four SWD scandal engineers

KOTA KINABALU: The magistrate's court here today extended the remand order on four engineers arrested last week for their involvement with a multi-million ringgit graft scandal in the Sabah Water Department (SWD).
They were among the 19 engineers who are district heads of the SWD arrested on Oct 19.
Their remand was extended for five days, until Oct 27.
A source at the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) confirmed their investigators seized about RM7.2 million cash from several of those arrested in the second phase of the investigation.
"As of today, MACC are still recording statements from the suspects arrested to facilitate investigation," the source said.
MACC deputy commissioner for operations Datuk Azam Baki confirmed the latest developments.
On Oct 20, theSun front-paged operations was launched simultaneously at 27 locations across Sabah, where the 19 officials, aged 29 and 59, were picked up for allegedly receiving kickbacks of between 27% and 30% of the value of SWD projects and emergency response work awarded to contractors.
On Oct 5, the arrest of a SWD director and his deputy by the MACC saw the biggest haul of a whopping RM52.2 million in cash ever made in the history of graft-busting in Malaysia.
The value of the seizure in that case rose to almost RM150 million within days after the bust, when the MACC uncovered more cash, jewellery, land titles, luxury cars and merchandise from the suspects and their families.