CRIME CASES SUCCESS AFTER 20 ARRESTS

KOTA KINABALU: City police have solved more than a dozen cases of criminal activities following the arrest of 20 suspects including a foreign woman.

The suspects were apprehended at various places during crime prevention operations conducted over the past two months.

And, they also recovered stolen cars, motorcycles, electrical goods, pirated and lewd VCDs, contraband items as well as one kilogramme of syabu, worth more than RM800,000 all in all.

City police chief ACP Ahmad Sofi Zakaria said among those detained were five members of a car theft syndicate believed to be involved in at least three car theft cases as well as four students, aged between 17 and 18, for alleged motorcycle theft.

The foreign woman, he said was detained for attempting to offer a bribe of RM2,000 to a senior anti-narcotics officer for the release of a suspected drug trafficker detained during an anti-crime blitz in Sembulan here.

“We believe the woman is related to the suspect,” he said.

According to Ahmad Sofi, the five car theft syndicate members aged between 25 and 40 were detained on August 6.

The gang was believed to have stolen a Mercedes Benz, Toyota Land Cruiser and a Proton Waja from a doctor’s house in Taman Ria on June 4.

To a question, Ahmad Sofi said so far police had recovered five stolen cars and were looking for another Toyota Prado.

“We are probing the syndicate’s networking…we also want to establish if there are other members still at large,” he added.

\On the arrest of the four students, he said the first one was picked up on July 26 while his three accomplices were nabbed several days later.

“We recovered three stolen motorcycles from the trio,” Ahmad Sofi related.

He also said they seized 3,246 pirated VCDs and 239 lewd VCDs following the arrest of eight people including four illegal immigrants aged between 16 and 43.

These suspects, he said, were detained in the city, Inanam and Menggatal.

Ahmad Sofi added they also arrested a foreigner, 51, August 27 at the Telipok resettlement area and seized from him 482 cartoons of cigarettes worth about RM8,000.

Meanwhile, Ahmad Sofi advised members of public not to entertain strangers.

He also commended the public for their continued cooperation to help curb crime in the city.