The Immigration Department believes that Chinese nationals with fake South Korean passports are using Malaysia as a 'transit-point' to get to Europe.

The department's enforcement director Ishak Mohamed said the dealings were done by agents who facilitated the Chinese nationals, most of whom come here on social visit passes issued by the government of China.

"Chinese nationals do not face difficulties if they use South Korean passports because South Korea is a developing nation and a member of Apec.

"They will have difficulties if they use their own Chinese passports," he was quoted as saying by Bernama .

Ishak believes that the syndicate was operated by foreigners.

He said the activities of the syndicate surfaced when the department detained 70 Chinese nationals during a recent operation.

"One incident involved 31 Chinese nationals who flew to Kuala Lumpur from Brunei. From KLIA they left for Istanbul. Immigration officers there deported them after finding something amiss and later found out that they were using forged South Korean passports," he added.

Malaysian passports

Ishak also did not rule out the possibility that Chinese nationals were using forged Malaysian passports to enter European countries but reiterated that he had not encountered any such incident so far.

He said the department would adhere to Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's call for greater cooperation to be in place between the department, police and the Embassy of China to successfully track down Chinese nationals who overstayed.

Ishak was responding to a front-paged report in an English daily recently that some 50,000 Chinese nationals who had entered the country as tourists and overstayed this year had not checked out.

He also urged the public to personally e-mail him at ishak@imi.gov.my for any information regarding the overstaying of tourists or illegal immigrants, regardless of any nationality.

However, Ishak could not confirm another news report that more than 300 Chinese nationals, carrying tampered Malaysian travel documents were doing time in several European Union countries for credit card fraud.