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NATIONAL NEWS
Sibu syndicates go hog wild over good rubber price
Author: Posted by Lenny/source Bernama
Date: 03/02/2010
Sibu - Local syndicates here are prepared to resort to anything in their haste to make money from the current good market price of rubber.
"They are doing all kinds of things like smuggling in illegal workers, looking out for the appearance of law enforcers, laying booby traps and worse still, threatening owners of the abandoned rubber smallholdings deep in the jungle.
"The owners are threatened with bodily harm or damage to their property if they inform the police or refuse to allow their rubber trees to be tapped for free," Sibu police chief ACP Shafie Ismail told reporters Wednesday.
He said police were aware that the syndicates were operating in several areas such as Sungai Bidut, Sungai Assan, Engkilo, Bukit Lan and Durin.
"We plan to launch a big joint operation against them soon. Right now we are gathering more information," he said.
Shafie said the masterminds were a vicious lot and the tappers were at their mercy as they had come in illegally.
"They don't dare to come to us because of their status or they don't know where to go. We have reports saying that they are given very little food and paid very little or not paid at all."
He said some of the masterminds, after getting the harvests from the workers, reported them to the police so that they could be arrested to avoid paying their wages.
"Because of the threats made, the police too had to make arrangements to record statements from the owners at hotels as they were reluctant to come to the police stations.
"We have recorded statements from some of them who are no longer staying at their smallholdings as they have moved to the towns or other parts of the state," he said.
The current market price for rubber sheets is RM7.50 per kilogramme while scrap rubber is at RM4.80 per kg.
On another development, Shafie said police had not been able to solve the case of molotov cocktails being thrown twice at the home of state DAP chairman Wong Ho Leng last year because of the lack of information while no witness had come forward.
He said a prominent leader of the Malay community here too had a molotov cocktail thrown at his house last year.
