T. Sathiskumar went missing after following his grandfather E.P. Veloomurugan, 46, to a food court in Jalan Permatang Pauh here. He was travelling with his father, T. Tamil Vanan, 30, in his lorry until they stopped at the food court at 12.30pm. Tamil Vanan, from Ampang Jajar, Butterworth, was heading towards Bukit Kayu Hitam, Kedah, on his delivery rounds. At the food court, Sathiskumar disappeared in the crowd and could not be found.
State Criminal Investigation Department chief Senior Assistant Commissioner Mazlan Kesah said the boy weighed 15kg and was 70cm tall. He was last seen in a pair of green shorts and a T-shirt with a yellow Spiderman hat. Those with information on Sathiskumar’s whereabouts can call Inspector Mohamed Ehsan Abu Bakar at 012-2494002, or the nearest police station
Please keep an eye for him and parents, please keep close eyes on your kids too and don’t let them be another number in the missing children statistics.
Update 1: More Nigerian drug masterminds being caught in the county. From theStar:-
The 28-year-old Nigerian leader of an international drug distribution ring was masquerading as a college student. He made easy money by luring lovestruck women into smuggling drugs. The man became a major player in the regional drug smuggling trade, but despite keeping a low-profile, his activities were noticed. He was nabbed after a six-month surveillance by police.
Are we still leaving the back door open for more foreign criminals to slip-in through in disguise of students?
(The police’s press conference on the arrest the Nigerian drug baron, who soon will be facing the gallows. One has been caught, what about the rest? What about other crimes like internet scams and fraud?)
When will the authorities wake up and put their “foot down” (I mean with serious short & long term action and not just the usual talk cock) on this long nagging problem? Will the Home Minister able to do some serious “out-of-the-box” thinking to get rid of these persistent parasites from Africa for once and for all?
A Nigerian living like a king in his little palace hideout in Lukut, Port Dickson, was nabbed by the police on suspicion of running a multi-million ringgit international drug syndicate. After six months of surveillance, police moved in on the 32-year-old Nigerian, who has been living a life of luxury in his bungalow house on Saturday and nabbed him and his 31-year-old live-in girlfriend whom he referred to as his wife.
Police investigations also revealed that the suspect, who had been operating in the country for less than a year, owns a hotel in his home country believed to be paid for with money gained from his illegal activities here.
Assets belonging to the man, his girlfriend and his right-hand man in Malaysia worth millions of ringgit have been frozen. The three have been remanded for seven days.
Noor Rashid revealed that in unrelated cases last week, six people from Zambia, Iran and Nigeria, including women aged between 25 and 38, were arrested in KLIA, Puchong and Damansara for drug smuggling. Drugs seized in these cases have a street value of RM7mil.
Kudos to the police in nabbing the criminal (are there others?) and in due time, this criminal and others like him will soon face the gallows (unless the prosecution screws up big time). And whilst the police and to some extent the Immigration Department have been going after the criminals from African (namely from Nigeria) who had overstayed and abused student visa, the more important check should come even before these criminals enter the country. And why we still have Nigerian criminals in this country despite all the hoo-haa in the past on the abuse of student visas by the politicians? Is it because we have been good is nabbing them; we have screwed up in punishing them and in making sure they never return after we had deported them? Are these criminals taking the advantage of the possible corruption or loopholes in the system?
Doesn’t the very fact that they are driving around in luxury cars (and act like morons on the road) and staying at high-end residential areas without a clear indication of their source of income draws one’s doubts? And considering we have yet to nail the South American criminals who did the ATM job in recent weeks (perhaps they have gone back to their own country to let things cool down and be back later), we need to re-look into the operational & review process & procedures in allowing foreigners (especially from dubious countries from Africa & South America and others “watch-list” countries like Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Iran, Pakistan, India and Indonesia) into this country. What is happening to our border patrols? After all, if it is that easy for drug dealers to move in and out of this country, think of the consequences if we have terrorists doing the same.
Are we asking the right questions before we grant these foreigners access to our country? Are our people at these entry points alert enough to single out any suspicious characters for further investigations? Were the verification of documents and other information done extensively before access is granted? Have we checked their source of income? If a clown is coming to this country for Basic English classes, obviously questions need to be raised – why a class on Basic English, why this country (where English is not even the language of Science and Mathematics) and how this clown is going to pay for the classes? From some scholarship, money from parents or from drug money? Is the college registered and recognized by the Government to take in foreign students? Where this clown is going to stay for the duration of his “course”? Is there a guarantee somewhere for his good behaviour? For short term visits, does he has a valid return ticket?
What about his past record from his home country? And since we already deployed biometric registration for foreign workers, have we enforced the same on those who abuse their visas? And go step further with tying up with fingerprint database from the law enforcement agencies (it should not be that difficult considering the infrastructure that we have now) so that those with criminal records can be easily identified at the borders (even if they had changed their name and passport) and entry is strictly denied (or subject to even further questioning & checking).
And before anyone accuses Malaysia on doing selective prosecution or practice selective racism, let me say this upfront aloud – screw you. We have other foreigners as well and a number of them have been living and studying in this country for years without any problems but not the Nigerians and to some extent Iranians. Almost on a monthly basis, you see them in the news caught for illegal activities – if it is not on internet scams, then it is on drugs and other crimes:-
February 2012 – Customs officers have detained a 27-year-old Nigerian man for attempting to smuggle 75 pellets of drugs in a condom which he had swallowed. KLIA Customs deputy director Siti Baya Berahan said the man, suspected to be a drug mule, was held at the airport here at about 11pm Thursday after he had flown in from Lagos.
February 2012 – The High Court sentenced to death a Nigerian man after he was found guilty of drug trafficking two years ago. Judicial Commissioner Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab said the prosecution had proved its case beyond reasonable doubt against 34-year-old Oluigbo Eric Chimeze.
April 2012 – Meanwhile, a 27-year-old Nigerian registered as a student of a private college in Kuala Lumpur since June last year, was found with 0.85kg of methamphetamine concealed in a special compartment in his laptop bag, New Straits Times reported on Sunday. Malaysian custom chief Siti Baya said the man was detained by Customs when his laptop bag showed a suspicious image when it was scanned on his arrival from Lagos.
May 2012 – A Nigerian man was sentenced to death at the High Court here Monday for trafficking cannabis two years ago. James Kamara, a student at a private higher learning institution in Kuala Lumpur, was found guilty of trafficking 18,810gm of cannabis at about 9.05pm, at the Shahab Perdana bus terminal here, on Sept 13, 2010.
May 2012 – Following the arrest, police raided two houses in Kuala Lumpur and Kota Damansara on Monday and Tuesday where they nabbed 15 Nigerian men. “The syndicate has been active for more than two years and we believe more victims have been conned by its members,” he said yesterday. ACP Izany also said initial investigation revealed all the Nigerian suspects hold student visas and study at local colleges.
June 2012 – A Nigerian student was jailed for 15 months and ordered to be caned four times by a magistrate’s court for misappropriating RM4,850 from an Iranian student in an online banking scam.
July 2012 – A Nigerian drug mule was arrested with about 400gm of syabu in capsules that she swallowed. The 32-year-old woman, who arrived from Doha, was nabbed at around 7.30pm at the Low-Cost Carrier Terminal on June 16.
July 2012 – Five Africans have been arrested for trafficking about RM1mil worth of Syabu. Federal Narcotic Crimes Investigations Department (NCID) director Comm Datuk Noor Rashid Ibrahim said police arrested four Nigerians and a Ghanaian man in Kepong at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA).
July 2012 – Four Nigerian students were charged in the Magistrate’s Court on Friday with trafficking 977 grammes of syabu. The men were charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which can be sentenced under Seksyen 39B(2) of the same Act and read with Section 34 of the Penal Code, which carries a mandatory death sentence upon conviction.
August 2012 – The High Court here on Sunday sentenced a Nigerian man to death after finding him guilty of trafficking drugs, last year.
August 2012 – A Nigerian cleaner was sentenced to 15 years in jail by the High Court after pleading guilty to an alternative charge of possessing 2.9kg of methamphetamines.
We can tolerate the nonsense from our politicians (which is getting insanely stupid by the minutes these days but it does not matter, we are Malaysians) but we can never tolerate the criminals who come to this country and abuse the entry privileges, take our hospitality for granted, use this country as transit point for all kind of illegal activities, rob & cheat Malaysians at the same time and gain millions of ringgit from their illegal activities whilst continuing to show their middle finger to the law of the country.
(A video of a drug trafficker being caned at Sungai Buloh prison in Malaysia. Despite the severe punishment including the mandatory death by hanging is clearly defined and made known to all visitors to this country, we are still having foreigners bringing in drugs to the country on regular basis. Something is not right here )
If you ask me, probably these criminals should be severely punished and any Malaysians who knowingly help these criminals should be charged with treason and should be charged with the same crime too. No second chance, no sweet talk, no mere threats and certainly no fear of losing influx of foreigners to this country.Yes, it may sound way too extreme but consider this – despite the fact that ultimate punishment for trafficking drugs in this country is the death penalty, the number of people caught with drugs (either as drug mules or drug dealers) does not seem to be reducing. These people are not dumb, they are simply greedy and ruthless.
At end of the day, we may lose some income here and there (some small colleges may have to close down for good but who cares, you never know, it may be run by Nigerians too) but overall this will send a clear message to those foreigners who intend to commit crime in this country. A strong message that says that Malaysians does not tolerate criminals and certainly do not want the good name of this country as being the transit country for criminal activities.
We are more than happy to welcome foreigners to this country for needs of education, business and pleasure but we must certainly must be prepared to kick out any foreign criminals from our doorsteps.
(How safe you are feeling when you are out these days? Sorry, let me rephrase that – how safe you are feeling when you are out these days considering that the statistics shows a lower crime rate? Image source: http://www.pemandu.gov.my)
Do you believe that the crime rates have dropped drastically over the last few months?
No doubt that the police are doing their very best in combating crime (with breakthroughs like this, this, this and this) but it is also clear (if you have read the news in the last few days) that it does not matter if you are an-ex Chief Minister or a Police Chief or just happen to be within the vicinity of the state police headquarters, you can still get screwed by the criminals:-
The house of former Malacca chief minister Tan Sri Abdul Rahim Tamby Chik was broken into by burglars who took away cash and a pistol. All the occupants of the house were out for a wedding in Malacca during last night’s break-in.
At about 9pm, one of Abdul Rahim’s family members came home but he did not notice anything amiss. However, sources said that after taking a shower, he realised that the master bedroom had been ransacked. When the family returned home and checked their belongings, they discovered that several items and valuables were missing.
“Three rooms were ransacked. The burglars took cash, jewellery, valuables and a pistol,” said a family member.
The multi-purpose vehicle belonging to the Sentul district police chief was found 12 hours after it was stolen at his home in Taman Chandan Puteri here.
Kuala Kangsar district police chief Superintendent Abdul Gaffaar Muhammad said police found Assistant Commissioner Zakaria Pagan’s Toyota Estima at 3pm yesterday in Pasir Puteh, Ipoh. “Zakaria realised his car was missing when he wanted to go and buy breakfast at 8am.”
A money changer was robbed following a daring heist by a group of armed robbers just opposite the state police headquarters here.
According to a nearby saloon employee, who wanted to be known only as Joyce, 35, the robbers had used two vehicles to carry out the robbery at around 10.15am along Jalan Harimau Tarom on Tuesday.
And in recent spate of robbery and attempted abduction in shopping centres against lone women and multi million ATM robberies (damn, we used to deal with Indonesian and Nigerian criminals but now South American and Middle East criminals are getting in the act too), the question now raised is whether we have been looking at the wrong side of the statistics.
We call upon the Government to stop the spin on the crime situation in the country. There is absolutely no question that the people do not feel safe in the streets regardless of the many “feel good” selective statistics the Government has released to the public.
Datuk Idris Jala claimed that “we as in the police (PDRM), Home Ministry (KDN) and Pemandu have been very transparent in acknowledging that there are 157,891 index crime cases reported in 2011”.
However, if the Government is so confident of its crime fighting achievements, why is it refusing to provide detailed statistics by districts (e.g., Petaling Jaya, Klang, Serdang etc.) or by type of crime (e.g., murder, kidnapping, snatch theft, robbery, armed robbery etc.)?
In 2010, Malaysia’s Special Branch, according to PKR, spent three times more resources spying on its citizens than it has fighting crime. PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail revealed figures from the 2012 Budget, showing that the police produced 733,237 spy reports and security checks in 2010. In comparison, the number of investigation papers under criminal investigation opened that year was 211,645.
“All in all, the police’s Special Branch produced 733,000 reports on its citizens, spying on roughly 4.3% of the adult population of Malaysia,” said Wan Azizah.
She expressed irony at this, hinting at the rising spate of crime in the country, especially where violence against women was concerned. She said that instead of focusing on crime, the government chose to focus on statistics.
For 2012, the Government has posed the following crime reducing rate and given the recent measures undertaken by the Government in combating crime (like the very assuring Ops Payung especially at commercial areas and more street patrol) and the past results from 2011, I am confident that we can achieve a good part of the said targets (if they are not busy with non-criminal policing work on the oppositions or not being too busy with road blocks & fortification of the Dataran Square for another Bersih-like rally):-
1. Reduce 5% of Crime Index against the year 2011.
2. Reduce 45% of Street Crime Index against the year 2009.
3. Reduce 45% of people who fear of becoming victim of crime.
4. Increase 25% of PDRM charging rate.
5. Increase 65% of public satisfaction on police services.
But then again, statistics are at the best is just an indicator and not necessarily reflect the actual crime rate as the computation of the reduction in crime rate is also dependant on other factors like the increase of the population overall and by types and severity of the criminal act. The reliance of statistics alone gets worse if the statistics are manipulated to show better rates as this finding on NYP’s crime statistics shows:-
An anonymous survey of nearly 2,000 retired officers found that the manipulation of crime reports — downgrading crimes to lesser offenses and discouraging victims from filing complaints to make crime statistics look better — has long been part of the culture of the New York Police Department.
The results showed that pressure on officers to artificially reduce crime rates, while simultaneously increasing summonses and the number of people stopped and often frisked on the street, has intensified in the last decade, the two criminologists who conducted the research said in interviews this week. Mr. Browne said the summary’s conclusions drew on respondents’ perceptions, which were not supported by the facts.
According to the summary, for example, a majority of respondents indicated that they lacked confidence in the accuracy of the Police Department’s crime statistics, which reflect an 80 percent drop in major crimes since 1990. Many of the retired officers who participated in the survey said they believed crime had declined since 1990, but “not to the extent claimed by N.Y.P.D. management,” the summary said.
As I said, statistics are at the best is just an indicator. There is no point praising the statistics if petty theft crime rate had decreased but armed robbery crime have increased at the same time (Tony Pua’s contention that the current statistics does not detailed statistics by districts or by type of crime) and if the necessary follow-up action have been done. The Government no doubt must continue to evaluate the measures already taken to bring down the crime rate (even though the statistics may show good figures) – what works must be continued with more vigour, commitment and frequency and what does not work should be shelved and replaced something more effective.
We have commenced the biometric registration for the foreign workers but how effective it is considering that we continue to have criminals in disguise of students from Nigeria (“students” from Iran is another time-bomb waiting to blow – just wait and see) to continue to come over to this country to create trouble and commit crime (although the authorities have closed the gap) and now having South American & Middle Eastern criminals doing high profiled crimes in the country – how long it is going to be before things gets worse and foreign criminals start running the show in this country?
And have we started to look into the legal loopholes and stiffer punishment for the repeated hard-core criminals? How many of them have come out and committed the same crime, perhaps with fatal consequences?
Someone who I know was robbed just a couple days and when talking to the policemen who were very helpful, understanding and determined to solve the case, we heard the sheer frustration from the men in blue. They lament on how they put in the hours (on top of other cases to be solved with pressure from the top, the politicians and the public) and pull in the resources to catch the criminals only to see these criminals back on the streets (committing more crimes) due to loopholes in the law and legal procedures. And when some people die in the act of pursuit and arrest, the police are often blamed as being too aggressive and trigger happy whilst the common criminals elevated to a hero status (read Durai’s excellent “Funeral of a Macha” post for a take on this).
And since we are very concerned on the trend and ease of foreigners (who according to the police are professionals) committing crimes in this country, we should re-look into how the current law addresses crimes committed by these foreign criminals. Just like how foreigners have to pay more for health services and petrol in this country, I think they should “pay” more for their crimes as well. The prison terms or the number of whipping that is provided under the normal law should, automatically and mandatory, be doubled (or tripled) if the criminal charged is a foreigner (of course in due time, high penalty should apply for all criminals – local or foreign).
At the end of the day, we just want to be safe, not only for the citizen of this country but also for foreigners who are here on legitimate reasons but at the same time, the law of this country and the enforcement of it should be so severe and swift that the last thing anyone want to do in the country is to commit crime.
In a way, a positive development in the fight against fake Africa students…
(By all means, we welcome foreigners for the benefit of education, business and tourism sectors but what we do not welcome is them ending up as a menace and start committing crime in this country)
Despite the arrests, don’t you feel angry when some bastard foreigners and come over and piss on our good hospitality and abuse the student visas and commit criminal activities?
Yet another drug trafficking syndicate with African links was crippled by the Selangor police recently. Nine Nigerian men and three local women were nabbed in separate raids, with the seizure of ganja and syabu worth about RM300,000.
The suspects, aged between 25 and 33, are believed to be students of private institutions in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur. Selangor Narcotics Crime Department chief ACP Nordin Kadir said Wednesday that initial investigations indicated the Nigerians had been operating in this country since last year, and smuggled the drugs for the local market, including classmates.
The nine suspects have been placed under a seven-day remand, beginning Feb 20, to facilitate investigations under 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act which carries the mandatory death penalty upon conviction.
Don’t you get angry? If I am a genuine student from the same continent, I would be angry with these criminals abusing student visas and give a bad name to all students from the continent. I would be angry with them for creating a sense of apprehension, fear and wrong impressions with the locals.
And if I am an immigration officer, I would be angry knowing that there are some bad apples in the department who had been plainly careless or may even been highly corrupted in granting student visas without a proper check of the background of the students or college – the fact that these bastards coming over to learn English in some dubious college should have rung the alarm in any immigration officer’s mind from the very start.
African menace as the one above and that includes Iranians drug mules, drug dealers and now, assassins posing as students has been one pain in the neck. But then, after a long time, there seem to be some light at the end of the tunnel:-
Malaysia has tightened the visa application process from foreigners wanting to study here to curb rising cases of permit abuse. The applications would be screened by the police first, Home Ministry secretary-general Tan Sri Mahmood Adam said in a press statement yesterday.
This was among the new measures to ensure only genuine students would be given approval, he added. Mahmood said his ministry and other regulatory authorities had worked to streamline procedures involving foreign students.
The decision to stop granting visas on arrival and social visit passes to foreign students could curtail crimes, including prostitution involving foreigners claiming to be students of private institutions of higher learning in the country.
Bukit Aman anti-vice, gaming and secret societies (D7) principal assistant director Datuk Abdul Jalil Hassan said the police had discussed the matter with the Immigration Department before making the recommendation to the Higher Education Ministry to stop issuing such visas and visit passes to foreign students to check the abuse.
Most of the students arrested for alleged involvement in criminal activities were pursuing short courses, such as language skills, at private colleges not under the ministry’s supervision, he told Bernama on Monday.
He was commenting on the Higher Education Ministry’s decision to stop issuing visas on arrival and social visit passes to foreign students to check the abuse. Its minister, Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin said visas would only be issued to foreign students after they received an offer from public or private institutions of higher learning under the ministry’s supervision.
Admittedly this should have been done a long, long time ago but at least, the Government seemed to moving its fat big butt in enforcing the student visa rules and we just hope that this change of policy will be closely followed up with proper enforcement.
A good chance for the Home Minister to put good of his words that Malaysia is not a safe transit for criminals
Whilst we welcome genuine Africans students to come over and get their higher education to better themselves and their country, we do not want criminals in disguise as students to come over and start creating problems and commit serious crimes here. And regrettably the number of menace caused by these Africans seems to be on a worrying trend.
In recent weeks, newspapers have been highlighting, police and immigration raids and arrest of Africans in Malaysia. In some instance, the Africans while trying to evade arrest were brazen enough to attack the police with metal rods. The temerity of them! Clearly Africans in Malaysia have moved from being a nuisance, to a menace and now they are fast becoming a threat to national security
For some time Malaysians have been watching with great uneasiness, the growing influx of Africans into Malaysia. It would seem that many Africans are purported coming into Malaysia as students but in truth many of them are using this merely as a conduit to enter into this country, either to misuse their visas, overstay and become illegals or be involved in crime. Harian Metro in October 2006, reported that Africans have gone from being customers at brothels to running brothels with some earning up to RM1,000.00 per day. If that is not surprising, Utusan Malaysian on Sunday December 18, disclosed of an African who arrived in this country with only clothes on his back and then went on to build a RM400 million five star hotel back in Africa all from the money earned by cheating people in Malaysia.
Africans after arriving have moved on and created mini colonies in areas around Kuala Lumpur, Selangor and Negri Sembilan. With their loutish and boorish behavior, they are not only a nuisance but also a disturbance in many neighbourhoods. In short they have become a menace
We have to admit that Malaysia has lost the fight against Indonesian immigrants either illegally entering Malaysia or overstaying. Let us now not lose also the fight against the Africans. Apprehending Africans is not the job of the police alone. People seeing Africans staying or being present in their neighbourhood ( unlike Indonesians, Africans are easily identifiable) must call the local police station and if no action is forthcoming call the Ketua Polis Negeri. If all attempts have failed then email me at anfalaw@streamyx.com Whatever do not do what the dumb assed Senator Datuk Paul Kong Sing Chu whose advise was “the best is to totally avoid them”. Really ?
I leave you with a chilling comment posted by a Nigerian in the Malay Mail Online “ I assure u (sic) that one day Nigerians will begin to contest for political posts in your country and if u (sic) are not careful they will gain victory, it has happen in so many places and Malaysia is no exception”.
Malaysians take heed… we have been warned by Africans themselves !
The question is what is Malaysia – the authorities and the Malaysians as whole (the menace would not grow without some locals in collusion) is planning to do to curb this menace. It’s high time we relook at the extent of our hospitality when it comes to Africans who commit crimes and become nuisance to others, tighten the immigration laws and ban them outright from this country if they failed to meet the very stringent immigration requirements. We need to keep up the enforcement (like this) and with biometrics facilities in places, it will not hard for us to enforce the laws and banning the troublemakers from the country.
