Recently, a Sri Lankan citizen attempted to obtain an International Malaysian Passport by pretending to be a 10-year-old boy.
This incident occurred at the UTC Komtar Immigration office in Georgetown, Penang Island.
The Penang Immigration Department (JIM) revealed this information on their Facebook page.
According to the State Immigration Director Nur Zulfa Ibrahim, suspicions were raised due to the subject’s physical appearance, which did not match that of a typical 10-year-old, and his inability to understand the questions.
He was accompanied by a Malaysian woman who claimed to be his mother.
Noticing these discrepancies, the on-duty supervisor conducted a preliminary investigation and found that the subject did not speak Malay.
An Indian official conducted further research and discovered that the boy’s speech did not resemble any Tamil dialect prevalent in Malaysia.
During the inquiry, the woman confessed that she was not the boy’s mother and had been paid to accompany him.
The teenage boy later confessed that he is a citizen of Sri Lanka.
Both the boy and the woman were taken into custody for further investigation under the Passports Act 1966.
According to NST, the most recent global passport index places Malaysia’s passport 12th, allowing its bearers to travel to 182 out of 227 countries without a visa.
Major international destinations such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Italy, Qatar, France, and the United Arab Emirates are visa-free for holders of Malaysian passports.
