Sources said among those arrested included a district engineer and two assistant engineers aged 38, 44 and 31 respectively. They were arrested in an operation carried out in the state for suspicion of accepting bribes from contractors in their supervised districts.

Three contractors were also detained to assist in the investigation for allegedly bribing the three civil servants to obtain projects offered by a government agency in a district in Johor since 2018.

“All of the contractors involved, aged between 31 and 44, are believed to have control of 11 companies registered in their names as well as proxies to monopolise the agency’s projects in the district.

“It is estimated that the monopolised projects amounted to millions of ringgit from 2018 to 2021,” said the source.

The source said that various forms of bribes were given to the three suspects including holiday packages, cash and valuables, including a boat.

The case is being investigated under Section 17 (a) of the MACC Act which provides for imprisonment not exceeding 20 years and a fine of five times the value of the bribe.

MACC intelligence director Azmi Kamaruzaman confirmed the arrests.

Earlier, the six individuals arrived at the magistrates’ court here at 8.30 am accompanied by MACC officers to be remanded under Section 117 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Five of them were remanded for seven days starting today until Aug 1 while one of the assistant engineers was remanded for five days from today until this Friday.