Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi has ordered the Immigration Department director-general to station officers at airports in Sabah to conduct random identity card scans to prevent anybody flying to Peninsular Malaysia using fake cards.

Zahid said through such an action, the authorities would be able to know, or detect earlier, whether the identity card used by a person was "authentic" or original, or otherwise.

He said the Home Ministry, through the National Registration Department (NRD) and Immigration Department, had taken some action primarily at the entrance and exit of airports.

"We are in the peninsula, we need to show identity cards to go to Sabah and Sarawak. So, this method is actually applied at the airport exits (in Sabah),” he told reporters during a visit to the Sabah police contingent headquarters (IPK) in Kota Kinabalu today.

Zahid, who is also home minister, was replying to a question from a journalist on the possibility of Daesh or Islamic State members using Sabah to obtain a fake identity card and using it to infiltrate into the peninsula.

Also present were Sabah Chief Minister Musa Aman and Sabah deputy police commissioner Razarudin Husain.

According to Zahid, in addition to enforcement at the airport, the government prior to this had taken certain steps and measures to ensure fake identity card holders did not give the slip to the NRD and Immigration Department.

Among the measures, he said, included investigations into several syndicates issuing fake identification cards, which subsequently led to several arrests and investigations conducted by NRD and the police.

He said the Home Ministry, through NRD and the police, had opened investigation papers on syndicates selling fake identity cards.

The ministry would continue to monitor the situation through an enforcement unit in NRD, in collaboration with the police, added Zahid.

On why Sabah became the focus of fake identity cards, the deputy prime minister said: "Due to the syndicates… because of the influx of foreign workers and the labour force from neighbouring countries, which are extremely close by... it is enough to make this happen."

"There is no day without enforcement. (For) the Immigration Department, 'there is no day without an operation'. This is our tag-line," he stressed

- Bernama