Marine police Region 1 commander Rusley Chi Ari said an initial investigation found that the factory had a valid licence, but only to operate as a scrap processing facility.

“The investigation suggests that the processed e-waste was sourced from abroad, with the factory operating under the guise of a scrap processing business,” Bernama quoted him as saying.

An inspection of the premises uncovered material classified as scheduled waste under the First Schedule of the Environmental Quality (Scheduled Wastes) Regulations 2005.

Rusley said the seized items included copper (16 tonnes), processed aluminium (208 tonnes), unprocessed aluminium (112 tonnes), mixed aluminium (seven tones), unprocessed mixed e-waste (23 tonnes), mixed e-waste residue (787 tonnes) and compressed aluminium (81 tonnes).

Also confiscated were three forklifts, two weighing machines, a lorry, an e-waste machine, a dewatering machine, and three conveyor machines.

He said all the seized items had been handed over to the Selangor environment department for further investigation.

Illegal e-waste operations have made the headlines in Malaysia over the past few weeks, with materials worth billions of ringgit seized by the authorities in raids.

A nationwide crackdown from January last year to Feb 17 this year led to the seizure of RM3.8 billion in materials, and the arrest of 538 people.