Five civil servants and middleman held in Semporna over RM20,000 bribe

KOTA KINABALU: Five civil servants have been arrested and are now under remand for allegedly soliciting and receiving a bribe in the Semporna district.

An alleged middleman in the case was also arrested with the civil servants, said Sabah Malaysia Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) director Datuk S. Karunanithy.

The five were attached to a government department in the district and were accused of asking for RM20,000 from a man whose son was under investigation for a smuggling case involving subsidised cooking oil.

It is learnt that the man’s son had allegedly tried to smuggle some 100 boxes of subsidised cooking oil out of the country recently.

Karunanithy said the six suspects are aged between 29 and 50 and were arrested on Wednesday (Jan 11) night.

He added that a remand order on them was obtained at the Tawau Sessions Court on Thursday (Jan 12) morning.