KUALA LUMPUR: The authorities arrested 181 people for breaching standard operating procedures (SOPs) of the COVID-19 Movement Control Order (MCO) yesterday, Senior Minister (Security Cluster) Datuk Seri Ismail Sabri Yaakob said today.

He said 93 of them were issued with compound fines, 80 were remanded and eight were released on bail.

“The highest number of offences was associated with entertainment centre activities, at 106; followed by failure to comply with physical distancing (35); failure to provide material to maintain customer records (24); gambling (eight); not wearing face masks (five); engaging in cross-border/inter-district travel without a police permit (two) and operating premises on extended hours (one).

In a statement on the Conditional MCO (CMCO) and Recovery MCO (RMCO), Ismail Sabri said the Compliance Operations Task Force headed by the police conducted 66,337 inspections yesterday at restaurants, supermarkets, banks, hawker stalls, markets, farmers’ markets, factories, government offices, houses of worship, recreational spots and land, sea and air transport terminals.

He also said that under the ‘Operasi Benteng’ operation against the entry of illegal immigrants, the authorities arrested 59 immigrants and seized four boats and five vehicles as well as detected 39 boats in the country’s waters in seven sightings.

Ismail Sabri said 873 people arrived at various international entry points yesterday and have been subjected to quarantine at centres nationwide, raising to 151,300 the number of people who have returned to the country since July 24 last year.

On the mandatory screening of immigrant workers, he said 2,449 people were screened yesterday and 10 were found to be positive for COVID-19. Up to 640,997 immigrant workers employed by 33,205 employers have been screened for COVID-19 so far, he added.

Ismail Sabri said 54 public sanitisation operations were carried out across the country yesterday, covering 17 COVID-19 red zones, five orange zones, 13 yellow zones and one green zone. In all, 19,251 sanitisation operations have been carried out since March 30 last year, he added.

-- BERNAMA