Former deputy prime minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today denied any link to a purported scam that allegedly took in more than RM185 million from Nepali workers over a five-year period.

The opposition leader refuted a Nepali Times news report, which claimed that a member of his family profited from a contract to handle the applications of workers from Nepal wanting to enter Malaysia.

Bestinet Sdn Bhd is said to have been set up by his brother-in-law Amin Abdul Nor.

"I do not have a brother-in-law by the name of Amin. I did not get a single sen from the company, and the company existed even before I joined Home Ministry," said the former minister.

"I am prepared to be probed, I am prepared to be slapped with all the evidence, if my family and I were involved.

"Please, conduct an investigation against me," Zahid told members of the media at Parliament lobby. 

On July 22, the Nepali news site reported Bestinet, together with a few other companies backed by powerful Malaysian politicians, as profiteers of Putrajaya’s revised foreign worker application process.

The report also named Kathmandu-based affiliates, Malaysia VLN Nepal and One Stop Centre (OSC), as among the companies involved in the migrant worker registration scam.

The report claimed that Zahid’s brother, Abdul Hakim Hamidi, and former home minister Azmi Khalid owned shares in the company.

"The scam involved the lack of transparency in Malaysia and in Nepal on the choice of the private companies hired to facilitate this process, which ended up fleecing workers.

"Fees were added on arbitrarily, and all involved in the syndicate in the two countries divided up the profits," the report alleged.