Seven men aged between 22 and 62 were rescued from the centre. They told police they had been tortured, beaten and chained up and forced to work without wages or holidays.

They said they were only given a small amount of food and the centre was equipped with closed-circuit cameras to monitor their movements, Bernama reported.

The centre’s founder, a man in his 50s who claimed to be a Datuk, had been arrested at his home in George Town at 8.25pm yesterday together with a woman and another man after 10 other people had been arrested in raids carried out in Penang and Kedah.

Penang police chief Shuhaily Mohd Zain said the man was suspected of being the syndicate’s mastermind. He had contested a parliamentary seat and a state assembly seat in the 2018 general election but had been defeated.

“Acting on information and intelligence obtained over the past two weeks, police arrested a man in a raid at a shop in Simpang Ampat, Nibong Tebal, near here, on Oct 27 and rescued seven victims in the premises which had been turned into a drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre.

“Several other raids were conducted by Penang and Kedah police, resulting in the arrest of six men and a woman, as well as the rescue of three men before the raid on the house in the northeast district and the arrest of the ‘Datuk’ together with a woman and man as well as rescuing three men,” Shuhaily said in a press conference here today.

He said those detained comprised nine men and two women who were caretakers and workers at the rehabilitation centre.

He said police found that even though the rehabilitation centre had been operating for two years, it was not registered with any government department.

Police have seized a laptop computer, nine handphones, two iron chains, a PVC pipe and two iron rods attached to a bed.