KUCHING: A group of policemen who tried extorting money from two illegal gambling operators found themselves in trouble as their peers caught wind of their devious plot.
The six men, including an Inspector, were arrested between 10pm on Tuesday and 3am yesterday at the State and district police headquarters here as well as the Padawan and Lundu stations.
The two illegal lottery peddlers, who the rogue policemen tried to squeeze money from, lodged a report against them, a police source said.
They claimed the rogue policemen had asked them to pay RM10,000 to avoid being arrested in an on going crackdown on illegal gambling activities.
The source said one of the peddlers paid RM2,000 while the other paid RM500 to the group.
The six policemen aged between 25 and 53 were remanded three days to facilitate on going investigations into the case.
Clad in purple and orange lock-up uniform, all suspects appeared calm when they were produced at the magistrate’s court in Petra Jaya near here yesterday.
Magistrate Zulhairil Sulaiman denied request by all suspects, who were unrepresented, to be released on police bail and ordered to be remanded until Aug 12.
State Police Commissioner Datuk Amer Awal said there will be no compromise against any members of the force who abused their authority and commit crimes.
“It is intolerable. We will never protect officers abusing their power as their action will tarnish the image of the force,” he said during a press conference at the state police headquarters here.
State CID chief Datuk Dev Kumar was also present. Amer, however, declined to divulge other details since the case was still being investigated.
“We are still in the process of questioning the suspects in order to get a clearer picture of what had happened, how long have they been extorting money, how much is the amount and any other victims involved.
“The two victims (who lodged the police reports) are businessmen... but, we can't reveal too much detail yet,” he added.
