Malaysia blocks people-smugglers on way to Australia

Malaysian police say they have busted an international smuggling syndicate sending Sri Lankans to Australia and New Zealand.

The rusty tanker, Etra, near Kota Tinggi in Malaysia. Picture: AP

Malaysian police say they have busted an international smuggling syndicate after intercepting a modified tanker carrying 131 Sri Lankans believed to be bound for New Zealand and Australia and arresting 16 suspected smugglers.

Malaysian naval and coastguard authorities detained the group of 98 men, 24 women and nine children in the early hours of Tuesday as they were being ferried by fishing boat from Kota Tinggi, in Johor on the country’s southern tip.

Though Malaysian authorities were not discussing further ­details of the journey, The Australian understands traffickers may have been touting for business last month among the Sri Lankan refugee camps in India’s southern Tamil Nadu.

Chandrahasan, a Sri Lankan refugee who founded the Eelam refugee rehabilitation organisation in the Tamil Nadu capital, Chennai, 34 years ago and works throughout the state’s 107 refugee camps to discourage illegal ­migration, said his organisation learned of a group of smugglers giving tours of an unusually large boat they said was to ferry asylum-seekers to New Zealand and also possibly Australia.

A Malaysian Police photograph of illegal migrants from the tanker.

“New Zealand was being given as the destination because it has not made as stringent rules as Australia (against boat arrivals) but it was also said that, if possible, it would go to Australia as well,” he said.

It is believed the would-be ­asylum-seekers paid between $US3000 ($3980) and $US5000 each for passage from Sri Lanka and possibly also India, via ­Malaysia.

Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton said any move by Bill Shorten to soften Labor’s support for Operation Sovereign Borders would “play into the hands of the people-smugglers.”

Mr Dutton said “it is clear the threat from criminal people smuggling syndicates remains and so must our efforts to maintain our border security.

“The need for Operation Sovereign Borders is as vital today as it was when it began. Unfortun­ately Labor’s support for tough border policies is ebbing away.”

The Australian previously ­revealed the Opposition Leader faced a pre-election brawl over border protection, with the party’s draft national platform proposing to overhaul the government’s home affairs portfolio and shift asylum-seekers out of mandatory detention after 90 days.

The opposition spokesman for immigration and border protection, Shayne Neumann, accused Mr Dutton of “helping the ­people-smugglers” and claimed Labor would “never let the people-smugglers back in business”.

“By playing petty politics, Peter Dutton is encouraging the people-smugglers to restart their vile trade,” Mr Neumann said.

“Labor believes in strong borders, offshore processing, regional resettlement and turnbacks when safe to do so because we know it saves lives at seas.”

The flow of boats has dropped dramatically since 2013 when Australia began turning back boats and introduced tough policies that ruled out accepting boat arrivals.

More than 50,000 asylum-seekers arrived under the Rudd and Gillard Labor governments and more than 1200 drowned.

A photograph released by Malaysia Police showing illegal migrants on the tanker. Picture: AP

Malaysian inspector-general of police Mohamad Fuzi Harun said four Malaysians and three Indonesians were detained after police raided the fishing boat. Those men, plus four Sri Lankans suspected to have been involved in ­organising the trip, are being held under the country’s Special Security Offences Act, while the ­remaining 127 civilians are in ­immigration detention in Johor.

Another five Malaysians were arrested in subsequent raids for ­involvement in the syndicate that he said had been operating for at least a year.

Pictures taken from the raid show a large group of men and women huddled under a tarpaulin on the deck of the tanker, Etra.

The Sri Lankan high commissioner to Malaysia, Muzamil, told The Australian that many of the ­detained asylum-seekers were carrying passports bearing Tamil-sounding names and 43 had UNHCR certificates.

Tens of thousands of Sri Lanka’s Hindu and Muslim Tamil minority fled the country during and immediately after its 27-year civil conflict that ended in May 2009 with the defeat of the Tamil insurgency. Many were granted refugee status and asylum in Australia, Canada and Britain, but conditions have improved considerably in Sri Lanka since the war’s end and the electoral defeat of the ­Sinhalese chauvinist government of former president ­Mahinda ­Rajapaksa in 2015.