SHAH ALAM: Police arrested six men from China and a local suspect over a string of home invasions across four states.
Selangor police chief Datuk Hussein Omar Khan said between January this year and last month, they received eight reports involving house break-ins at Sabak Bernam.
"The reports involved burglaries of two-storey houses. In most of these cases, valuables and cash stored in home safes had gone missing.
"We then formed a special task force involving Selangor Criminal Investigation Department's D4 Unit and Sabak Bernam police.
"They conducted intelligence gathering for over two months before making a string of arrests on Saturday and Sunday" he told reporters today.
He said during the raids at Kuala Lumpur and Subang Jaya, police arrested six men from China and a Malaysian man.
"We believe these men rented two Perodua vehicles and stayed at hotels to avoid detection.
"We have linked these suspects to house break-in cases in Negri Sembilan, Pahang, Perak and Selangor."
He said based on their investigations, the suspects did not have identification documents.
He added that police believe this was the first time a group of China nationals have been caught for house break-ins in the state.
"We previously announced that Latino gangs were going around committing such crimes, but this is the first time China nationals have been involved."
Hussein said the group usually conducted surveillance of target houses and struck at night or during early mornings.
"While we have linked them to 13 cases so far, the number of house break-ins could be far higher."
He added that the suspects have been remanded for seven days.
He said investigations revealed the Malaysian suspect arrested was a fence for the group.
"He is the one who would sell or dispose of the items stolen by the group."