This followed the arrest of 26 people in the Klang Valley in an operation last night.

Immigration director-general Mustafar Ali said raids were carried out on several premises after two months’ surveillance.

The foreigners and a local detained were aged between 25 and 50. The foreigners were from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Mustafar said the syndicate was using companies which had been set up to supply foreign workers to other organisations, making easy money of between RM3,000 to RM5,000 per worker.

“The syndicate is headed by a 50-year-old Bangladesh national.

“Our investigations found that he had set up several companies dealing in textiles, construction and janitor work, to cover up his criminal activities,” Mustafar said at a press conference here today.

He said with payments for each forged document of between RM1,000 and US$10,000 (RM39,000), the syndicate was believed to have raked in millions of ringgit.

He said the head of the syndicate had entered Malaysia in 2005 as a tourist and later started a network to forge the passports and documents of several Asean countries and those of Canada, France, India and China.

He said among the items confiscated were 136 forged passports, 87 false visa stickers of several countries as well as machinery and equipment for falsifying documents.

“We also found that the syndicate also handled applications for the semi-skilled foreign worker category, using false Bangladesh academic certificates to meet the conditions for the application,” he said.

All the foreign nationals were detained and investigated under the Immigration Act 1959/63, Passport Act 1966 (Act 150), the Anti-Trafficking in Persons and Anti-Smuggling of Migrants Act 2007 and the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001 (Act 613).