A Singaporean woman is alleging a possible case of extortion by Malaysian authorities after she was reportedly asked to pay a sum of money for torn pages found in her passport.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the incident took place when the woman was travelling to Malaysia with friends on Feb 23 for Chinese New Year.
Asked to pay RM200 for torn passport pages
Speaking to the Chinese news portal, 72-year-old Li Lihong (transliteration) said she and eight others had reached the Johor Bahru (JB) checkpoint on a chartered vehicle at 11am, where they handed over their passports to be stamped.
After stamping several passports, the officer told Li that hers had torn pages in it, where the bottom left corner of two pages had been ripped off.
The officer also told her that she needed to pay RM200 (S$60) before she could get pass the JB checkpoint. However, Li only had RM50 (S$15) on her at the time and asked whether it was sufficient.
To her dismay, the officer insisted that at least RM100 (S$30) must be paid, leading her to eventually relent and pay up the requested amount so that the group could continue their journey.
Following the incident, Li became worried that she would encounter the same scenario on her trip back to Singapore but was assured by the officer that it was unlikely.
‘It wasn’t there before’
Eventually, Li was able to return to Singapore without any issues that night and applied for a new passport the next day.
However, she’s still unable to figure out how her passport got damaged in the first place, adding that she always made it a point to check it before going overseas.
“I had just renewed it two years ago and it was set to expire on 2033,” she said.
Shin Min has since reached out to the Malaysian Immigration Department in Johor and Johor Public Works, Transportation, Infrastructure and Communications Committee chairman Mohamad Fazli Mohammad Salleh about a week ago for comment.
However, no reply was given as of yesterday (Mar 3).
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