Lankans nabbed in S'pore crackdown

Forty foreigners including Sri Lankans were arrested during a 10-hour crackdown that lasted from Wednesday, 5 pm until the wee hours of early morning on Thursday in Singapore, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers conducted a series of islandwide operations on more than 16 locations to arrest immigration offenders and their abettors.

By about 4 am the next morning, the ICA officers rounded up a total of 54 offenders ranging between 19 and 75 years. They included six Singaporeans, four women and two men, who are now being investigated for harbouring and/or employing these foreign immigration offenders.

Other foreigners arrested were from Bangladesh, China, Nepal and India.

The 38 men and 10 women were mostly overstayers. A few had run away from their employers. They admitted that they had come to Singapore to seek illegal employment and that they had no fixed employer. These offenders had been working as general workers, cleaners, odd-job labourers, painters and food stall helpers. Some of the women also admitted to being streetwalkers. AsiaOne