PUTRAJAYA: The domestic trade and cost of living ministry smashed activities involving the misappropriation of fishermen’s subsidised diesel at a site in Sungai Besar, Selangor, in a raid on March 5.
Its minister, Armizan Mohd Ali, said the site was suspected to be an illegal store and transfer point for fishermen’s subsidised diesel.
He said the enforcement team seized a total of 24,875 litres of diesel and equipment used for the fraudulent activities.
Three men aged between 30 and 40, who are believed to be workers at the premises, were arrested. The total seizure was estimated to be worth RM187,350.
“The raid was carried out as a result of information gathered from surveillance of the syndicate which is believed to have been operating for a long time and is a major player in misappropriating subsidised diesel meant for fishermen,” Armizan said in a statement today.
He said that under Ops Tiris, his ministry will submit reports and recommendations based on the findings obtained during the operation to the agriculture and food security ministry to strengthen the control mechanism for the implementation of the fishermen’s subsidised diesel and petrol subsidy scheme.
“The reports and recommendations are important findings obtained during the implementation of Ops Tiris 1.0 and Ops Tiris 2.0 which began on March 1, 2023 and is continued through Ops Tiris 3.0 now,” he said.
According to Armizan, the ministry’s enforcement team is focused on the subsidised diesel provided to fishermen. This is because it involves the risk of leakage with the sale of subsidised diesel to ineligible industrial sectors and foreign fishermen.
With that in mind, his ministry will strengthen its cooperation with other ministries and related enforcement agencies.
Based on enforcement statistics under Ops Tiris 3.0 from Jan 1 to March 6, Armizan said 9,093 premises had been inspected across the country with 245 investigation papers opened.
The successful exercise resulted in the seizure of 2.264 million litres of subsidised diesel subsidy worth RM5.39 million. During the same operations, various equipment, vehicles and other assets worth more than RM12 million were also seized.
The ministry said this makes the total amount of seizure under Ops Tiris 3.0 for subsidised diesel cases come up to more than RM17 million.
