KOTA KINABALU – A total of 50 new posts have been established to be tasked under the Wildlife Crime Bureau (WCB) in Bukit Aman.
Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani said the government had approved the new posts, which was obtained in the middle of July.
"We will establish this post as soon as possible and identify the officers involved in the WCB and the 50 positions will cover Sabah and Sarawak.
"WCB is a unit placed in Bukit Aman under the management of the Internal Security and Public Order Department (KDNKA) to enable investigations to be made in a supervised manner at the federal police level and ensure no cases are missed.
"I believe that the establishment of the WCB unit will have an effective impact in their efforts to fight crimes relating to wildlife, especially poachers and those who trade protected and endangered species,” he said in a press conference in conjunction with the Operasi Bersepadu Khazanah (OBK) here on Thursday.
Also present were Malaysian Customs General Director Datuk Zazuli Johan and Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) Director General Datuk Abdul Kadir Abu Hashim.
He also said that there had been an increase in statistics from the enforcement point of view for three consecutive years from 2019 to this year.
"We see a significant improvement from the enforcement point of view that we have made for 2022, 2021 and the previous year hence we believe that this momentum will be able to be continued,” he said.
Commenting on the meeting they attended earlier, he informed that the use of three standard operating procedures (SOP) for OBK was different for Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
"In the meeting, it was concluded that we have an SOP for the operation of OBK because in the Peninsula we use different acts, Sarawak uses ordinances likewise with Sabah but the working process is almost the same,” he said.