GELANG PATAH: The Customs Department says it is “impossible” for firearms to be smuggled into the country through its checkpoints as these are heavily monitored. Custom Department director-general Datuk Khazali Ahmad has shot down the possibility of cross-border smuggling of firearms through checkpoints as prohibited goods would not get clearance to pass the inspection gate. “Our scanners will reveal all contents in each luggage or package passing through the inspection gate, and firearms are not something that can easily slip through our checks,” he said. Khazali was commenting on claims by Thai authorities that smuggling of firearms at the Thai-Malaysian borders had gone undetected, bypassing custom and immigration checkpoint inspections.
Khazali said the agency will neither compromise on nor condone such illegal activity at the Custom, Immigration and Quarantine Complexes as it is obviously against the law and poses a threat to national security. Khazali said his agency has no qualms in working with police if the latter moved to investigate the allegation made by the Thai authorities. Khazali was speaking after the launch of the inaugural two-week-long marine joint-operation with the Indonesian Customs and Excise Enforcement Agency in combating trans-border smuggling activites in the two countries.
