KUALA LUMPUR: A foreign begging syndicate was crippled with the arrests of seven handicapped Chinese nationals and a local man in Jalan Sarawak, here, early yesterday morning.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Mohmad Salleh said earlier, one of the seven had reported that he was forced by a syndicate to beg in the city.
“At about 3am, a team of police found the complainant with three of his friends and a local taxi driver. His three other friends were located nearby. All were detained for investigation,” he told reporters here, yesterday.
He said the syndicate had been operating since three months ago and the seven men, aged between 27 to 38, had entered the country using social visit passes.
The seven, who said they could get RM500 to RM1,000 by begging, also claimed the main suspect, the syndicate leader, had kept their passports, he added.
Mohmad said police were looking for the main suspect, believed to be still in the Klang Valley, to help investigations under the Anti-Human Trafficking Act 2007.
In another case, two men were detained for stealing a car owned by a 69-year-old woman hotel manager in Old Klang Road, recently.
Mohmad said the suspects, who were acquaintances of the complainant’s family, borrowed the car on the pretext of going to the clinic. He said the first suspect, 37, who was handed to Selangor police, had four previous cases, for extortion, murder, rape and escaping from custody.
The second suspect, 33, who was detained in a rape case in 1999, was now remanded under Section 406 Penal Code for criminal breach of trust, he added. — Bernama