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 a 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.
(Source)
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 be 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.
(Source)
And further:-
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.
(Source)
Admittedly this should have been done a long, long time ago but at least, the Government seemed to be moving its stand in enforcing the African 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 make good of his words that Malaysia is not a safe transit for criminals from Africa.