IPOH, Feb 16 — The General Operations Force (GOF), in collaboration with the Perak Environment Department (DoE), raided an illegal e-waste processing facility in Kanthan, Sungai Siput, seizing e-waste and machinery valued at approximately RM1.3 billion.

According to The Star, Northern Brigade Commander Senior Asst Comm Shahrum Hashim said the operation, conducted yesterday, led to the arrest of 27 individuals, including foreign workers from China and Myanmar.

The raid followed a month-long investigation, which uncovered a significant amount of e-waste and processing equipment at the site.

This operation comes on the heels of similar raids on illegal e-waste facilities in Selangor and Johor over the past two days.

“We’ve seized machinery used for smelting, processing, and a laboratory to break down and identify materials like gold, tin, and copper,” Shahrum was quoted as saying.

“Among those arrested was a scientist from China who runs the laboratory and a two-year-old son of one of the Myanmar workers,” he told The Star during a press conference Sunday.

Shahrum added that the DoE is currently conducting an inventory exercise and collecting samples of the waste discovered at the site. He stated that some of the e-waste identified contains heavy metals such as aluminium, arsenic, mercury, and lead.

He further explained that official samples would be sent to the National Chemistry Department for analysis to determine the specific composition of the waste. Shahrum noted that the factory had been in operation for approximately eight to nine months.

“The waste is believed to be from various countries, including China, the US, and Bolivia, with over a thousand bags tagged as food items. These were transported to the factory in containers from Port Klang,” he shared with the English daily.

He stated that the factory was not registered with the DoE and had been operating illegally without authorisation to process e-waste. The premises, spanning 4.8 hectares, consisted of four building blocks, with an additional block under construction. A perimeter wall was also being erected at the site.

The case is being investigated under the Environmental Quality Act, while the foreign workers, including Chinese nationals with unstamped travel documents and undocumented Myanmar nationals, will face scrutiny under the Immigration Act.