Malaysia agreed to lift a freeze on new Bangladeshi workers last month, and it is understood that 25 Bangladesh recruitment agents (BRAs) and 250 sub-agents will be involved in recruiting new Bangladeshi workers for Malaysia.

In a letter sent to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Jan 13, the Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies (Baira) urged her to prevent the formation of recruitment syndicates to send Bangladeshis to work in Malaysia.

It said having such syndicates could result in workers becoming victims of labour exploitation.

The group also claimed corruption and human trafficking would increase as a result of these syndicates.

According to a report in Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star today, Baira alleged that a syndicate of 10 agencies chosen by Malaysia had monopolised recruitment between 2016 and 2018.

“During 2016-18, only 274,000 workers were recruited from Bangladesh despite the Malaysian government declaring it required 1,500,000 over the next three years,” the letter said.

“As per the government-to-government mechanism, the recruitment cost was initially set at Tk37,000 (RM1,800) but it was then increased to Tk160,000 (RM7,800).

“In reality, each worker had to spend Tk350,000 (RM17,060) on average for a job in Malaysia.”

Baira claimed syndicates swindled at least Tk600 crores (RM293 million) through unnecessary medical tests on 1,200,000 Bangladeshi workers.

It also claimed that up to RM2.4 billion had been laundered from Bangladesh to Malaysia between 2016 and 2018, but did not provide details.