Or to seek the demise of AKPS as the sole and single agency overseeing border security?
Before the setup of the AKPS led by its 1st Director General, Dato Sri Shuhaily, Malaysia was losing tens of billions of ringgit annually to the shadow economy, border smuggling, tax evasion, and commercial customs fraud.
Not millions or hundreds of millions but TENS OF BILLIONS and it is annually.
What can the country do with TENS OF BILLIONS per annum?
In Aug 2025, PMX announced a total of RM25.08 billion has been allocated for flood mitigation projects, with RM8.84 billion specifically for projects in Kelantan, Pahang, and Terengganu and projects worth over RM1 billion each for Kedah and Kelantan are being implemented through Pengurusan Aset Air Berhad (PAAB) loans.
Imagine TENS of BILLIONS lost annually that could instead go towards development projects for the country?
Because the responsibility for checking cargo was scattered across dozens of uncoordinated departments, institutional blind spots allowed massive revenue leakages to go unnoticed.
The scale of the losses uncovered by the Ministry of Finance (MoF), the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), and economists includes the following key figures:
1. High-Duty Goods Smuggling: RM5 Billion Annually
The Ministry of Finance estimated that the smuggling of high-duty goods—predominantly contraband cigarettes, tobacco, and alcohol—deprived the country of up to RM5 billion every single year in uncollected excise duties. Prior to MCBA, Malaysia was recognized as having one of the largest black markets for illicit cigarettes globally.
2. Under-Declared Goods & Airport Cargo Fraud: RM2 Billion Leakage
MACC’s Op Samba 2.0 revealed that syndicates operating out of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) Cargo terminal worked with freight forwarders falsifying declarations (e.g., claiming taxable luxury goods or electronics were cheap raw items) alongside corrupt officers taking bribes to bypass physical checks, resulting in the country suffering a RM2 billion tax revenue leakage over a three-year period from that single airport division alone.
A similar separate tobacco smuggling syndicate cracked by the MACC caused RM250 million in direct tax losses by falsifying manifest data.
3. The Broader Shadow Economy: RM118 Billion
On a macroeconomic scale, economists from institutions like the Journal of Financial Crime estimated that Malaysia's broader shadow economy—which includes completely unregistered businesses, smuggled goods flowing past porous borders, and severe corporate tax evasion—amounted to roughly RM118 billion (nearly 25% to 30% of the nation’s GDP).
By plugging these structural gaps through the AKPS and coordinated enforcement, the government has drastically reversed these leakages.
And reports from the Royal Malaysian Customs Department and the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) reportedly identified Port Klang, Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), and Bukit Kayu Hitam as the epicentres for the country's most severe revenue leakages
For perspective, the tight integration of border enforcement and stricter oversight helped the Royal Malaysian Customs Department experience a major recovery bounce, collecting RM43.62 billion in just the first half of 2026—exceeding their target projections by RM3.62 billion.
Hopefully, the public is made aware and understand why and the importance of AKPS for the sake of the country.
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