He said the foreigners were believed to be working in various sectors including plantation, manufacturing and cleaning services.

“The syndicate has been active for the past few years and has been found not to involve the countries supplying the foreign labour. Those who bought the passes were only individuals and employers.

“The data on foreign workers is in the system. If we find them selling the PLKS, they will be detained and deported from the country after going through a process,” he told a press conference on the large-scale operation to cripple a ring that hacked into the department’s database to issue the PLKS.

Khairul said the government had also suffered losses of RM4.7 million in levies based on payments of between RM600 and RM1,600 imposed for each valid PLKS, depending on the employment sector.

He said that although the syndicate managed to hack the system, they failed to change the blacklist status of foreigners who had been banned from entering the country.

Meanwhile, MACC chief commissioner Azam Baki said RM25.5 million in cash and assets were seized from the syndicate and this included 34 luxury watches.

He said the MACC also confiscated various electronic equipment believed to be used to process fake PLKS.