Malaysian police probe officers accused of extorting 2 drivers of Singapore-registered cars at JB checkpoint

SINGAPORE: Malaysian police are probing two officers after two Singapore-registered car drivers alleged they were subject to extortion at the Johor Bahru Sultan Iskandar checkpoint on Tuesday (Mar 12).

In a media statement on Thursday, the head of Johor Bahru police said the two officers were being investigated after posts by two Facebook users over the incident.

In a post on the Facebook group MY SG Road Trip – Your Malaysia Road Trip Guide, user Irene Teo said that she was crossing from Johor Bahru to Singapore when a Malaysian policeman ushered her into a lane used by lorries.

Ms Teo said she followed another Singapore-registered car “to a deserted side road beside the customs (checkpoint)”, where only two other cars could be seen.

A police officer came over to ask why she had used the lane designated for lorries to return to Singapore, before asking for the driver’s licence and passports of the car passengers.

Ms Teo alleged that the officer said that he would “help” them get back to the correct car lane leading to the immigration checkpoint in return for RM600 (S$171).

The officer claimed that the amount was a fine for driving in an unauthorised car lane.

Ms Teo said the officer told her that if she failed to pay up, she would have to lodge a report and pay the fine at the immigration office where their personal particulars would be logged into the system.

She wrote that she insisted on going to the office to pay the fine, but the officer “simply ignored (her)”, adding that he was still holding on to one of the passenger’s passports.

Eventually, however, Ms Teo agreed to pay him RM500 before the officer led the vehicle back to the correct car lane. Ms Teo did not give her nationality but she is reportedly Singaporean.

In a separate post on the same page, another user Sage, uploaded two dashcam footage videos of the incident, claiming to have been in the car in front of Ms Teo’s.

Sage, a woman who said she is Malaysian, alleged that she had been subjected to a similar experience.

In one video, a police officer can be seen shining a torchlight at Sage’s car and directing it toward the lorry lane.

The next clip then showed two police officers speaking to the driver in the car in front of them before asking for the passengers’ documents.

Sage said that after a “long argument” she had managed to pay RM100 in order to get her boyfriend’s licence back from the police, who had taken possession of it.

No recordings of the extortion were seen in the video.

TODAY has reached out to both the Facebook users for more information.

In the Malaysian police media statement, they said that Ms Teo was believed to have been instructed to pay S$142 to the two police officers “in order to avoid summons” for entering the truck checkpoint area.

The statement added that the police have not received any report from the victims so far.

It added that an official request has been made to the Singapore consulate office in Johor Bahru for help in tracking down Ms Teo and Sage to assist with investigations.

TODAY has reached out to the Malaysian police for more information.

This article was originally published in TODAY.