KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has detained five more people in connection with the theft and sale of transmission cables belonging to a telecommunications company.
MACC investigation department senior director Datuk Simi Abdul Ghani said the latest arrests were made following the detention of 12 people on Wednesday.
Simi said the five individuals were arrested on suspicion of illegally obtaining the cables from the Telekom Malaysia (TM) warehouse.
A source in the MACC said the five suspects were detained at the MACC offices here and in Negri Sembilan between 8pm and 10pm yesterday.
One of the suspects, a TM technician, was arrested at 10pm yesterday for allegedly working hand in glove with a TM contractor by producing 55 fake Maintenance Order documents.
According to the source, the fake documents were used to obtain the cables from the TM warehouse.
The 42-year old suspect has been remanded for five days beginning today to facilitate investigations.
Meanwhile, Negri Sembilan MACC arrested the remaining four suspects for their alleged role in selling the cables to a syndicate.
The source said three of the suspects were TM installation technicians and the other was a lab assistant at a school, who was also a part-time installation technician for TM.
The four suspects, aged between 23 and 32, were arrested in Johor at about 10pm before being taken to the MACC office in Negri Sembilan.
They have been remanded for seven days at the Seremban court beginning today to facilitate investigations.
Simi said the investigation is ongoing, and that MACC is in the midst of identifying several more suspects.
On Wednesday, MACC arrested 12 people including a TM technical officer over alleged graft and abuse of power between 2016 and March last year.
The unscrupulous activities saw the company losing between RM4 million and RM6 million within that period.
