Brunei-Bound Women Arrested In Miri
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Miri - The Immigration Department in Miri believed that it has smashed an international human trafficking syndicate that used the oil-town and Brunei as transit points to traffic people to Europe.

Last Sunday, the enforcement unit told the media that they had arrested nine women from China who were using fake passports at Miri Airport.

The department's director Datuk Ishak Mohamad said alert immigration personnel based at the airport foiled the nine women, aged between 20 and 30, before they could exit the oil town and enter Brunei at the Sungai Tujuh immigration checkpoint.

Datuk Ishak said from Brunei, the women were planning to fly to Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), Zurich and the rest of Europe where they wanted to stay.

The modus operandi of the syndicate was to bring in the women from China using Chinese passports through KLIA where the local agent would issue them with Korean passports.

With the Korean passports, they would fly to Miri and then exit Miri to enter Brunei at Sungai Tujuh before travelling more than 60 miles by road to Bandar Seri Begawan to exit the nation through Brunei International Airport in Berakas.

From Brunei, the women would fly back to KLIA, then to Zurich and the rest of Europe.

An Immigration officer at the Miri Airport was alerted when the women, who carried Korean passports, did not communicate "the way the Koreans do".

They also did not possess the Korean complexion and characteristics, and were without money to spend in Malaysia and return air tickets to Korea.

Brunei recently introduced the new Trafficking and Smuggling of Persons Order 2004, which makes a person guilty of an offence liable to a fine not exceeding $1 million, imprisonment for not less than four years but not more than 30 years and not less than five strokes of whipping.

The new order is to deter people from trafficking and smuggling of persons.

Brunei has been used in the past as a promised destination for work by runners, when in fact it was only a transit point for victims before they were transported to a neighbouring country to work as forced sex workers.

The Philippine Embassy in Brunei has been rescuing a number of Filipino workers, who were victims of human trafficking and forced sex workers in a neighbouring country in the past few years.

A few foreigners have also been caught using the Brunei International Airport, Berakas as a transit point in the past by eagle-eyed immigration officers and airline staff, who discovered that they were using fake passports. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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