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Bestinet - a money-making scandal?
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 4, 2026: The Coverage has posted a damning feature alleging Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and his deputy Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) commissioner Azam Baki’s role in Bestinet.
No News Is Bad News reproduces below the feature titled Bestinet: How Everyone Gets a Cut – Anwar, Zahid & Azam Baki’s Alleged Roles:
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Bestinet: How Everyone Gets a Cut – Anwar, Zahid & Azam Baki’s Alleged Roles
3 February, 2026
According to Bloomberg , The migrant worker — indebted, jobless and stranded in a foreign country — tried to keep it together as he picked up the phone to call his wife.
His name was Shofiqul Islam. He’d borrowed to pay $4,400 for a construction job that he’d been promised in Malaysia — an astronomical sum for a Bangladeshi farmhand. He’d gambled everything on leaving home to build a future for his two young children.
A representative for his employer had picked him up at the airport and he was eventually dropped at a run-down building outside Kuala Lumpur. Three flights up, past a rusty metal gate, was a room with a stack of worn mattresses, a gas stove, two hole-in-the-floor toilets and a hose for a shower. Wait here, the representative said. Then he disappeared.
After 147 days, the job still hadn’t materialized. Shofiqul’s employer had gone silent. His visa had expired. And with each passing day, the interest on his debt ticked up.
In the sparse dormitory that morning in February 2024, Shofiqul agonized over his situation. But once his wife and six-year-old daughter emerged on the screen he smiled, hiding his true feelings.
They spoke for an hour. He asked his daughter about the dragon fruit trees he’d planted near their home. Were they growing? Had white flowers sprung from them yet? And he consoled his wife: He’d heard the wait was almost over.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “The job will come very soon.”
Shofiqul was one of more than 800,000 Bangladeshi workers who went to Malaysia over the past decade, often going into debt to pay recruitment fees far higher than people from other countries, sometimes on the promise of jobs that never existed.
Interviews with more than 100 people, including current and former government officials, labor analysts, recruitment agents and Bangladeshi migrants, describe a recruitment process shaped by entrenched corruption and designed to extract as much money as possible from desperate workers, often leading to debt bondage, forced labor and human trafficking.
More than a dozen of those interviewed suggest that figures in Malaysia’s ruling elite, including at the highest levels of government, are aware of the issues but don’t attempt to fix them because the recruitment fees line the pockets of everyone involved. Most asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters, with some citing fear of retribution. A representative for the office of Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim referred Bloomberg to the Ministry of Home Affairs, which didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment. Bangladesh’s government didn’t respond to requests for comment.
Migrants the world over borrow to pay recruitment fees. They’re at risk wherever they go. But Malaysia’s recruitment from Bangladesh is one of the more extreme examples of private business people and government officials combining to squeeze workers, Bloomberg’s reporting suggests. It also has a unique backstory that shows how money and power intertwine in Malaysia.
Shofiqul was born in 1990 in Mulgram, a village hugging the bend of a river in western Bangladesh. A matchmaker paired him with a girl named Hosne Ara Khatun. They married and later fell in love while farming garlic, rice and jute. They had two children: a boy and a girl.
Whatever they earned they spent on daily needs. “He wanted to earn more,” Hosne Ara said. “He was desperate to go abroad.”
A village official introduced Shofiqul to a recruitment agent. The $4,400 fee Shofiqul paid would be the equivalent of an American paying $140,000 for a job.
With a population of more than 170 million and not enough jobs, Bangladesh is a global supplier of workers. “Born in Bangladesh to serve all over the world,” reads a sign outside a government building in Dhaka, the capital.
Malaysia is a top destination. Migrant workers hold one in five jobs there, the US State Department says. They staff shops and factories. They toil on plantations. They help produce 25% of the world’s palm oil, 45% of its rubber gloves and more than $100 billion of electronics and semiconductors annually. They build the skyscrapers shaping Kuala Lumpur’s skyline and the data centers powering Southeast Asia’s AI revolution. “Without them, the economy would collapse,” said Charles Santiago, a former member of parliament in Malaysia who oversaw investigations into migrant-worker abuse as head of a parliamentary committee on human rights.
“But we treat them badly,” he said. They work at least six days a week, sometimes getting cheated on wages. They’re randomly searched by police. They live in crowded dormitories, abandoned buildings or even the garages of buildings they’re constructing. Few complain. They can’t risk losing their jobs because they need to repay their debts.
Of all these migrants, none owes more than those from Bangladesh.
Malaysia has been recruiting Bangladeshis since at least the 1980s, and people at every step of the process have always demanded unofficial payments, according to more than 30 people familiar with the matter. But migrants had to pay much more, the people said, after one man, also originally from Bangladesh, came to play a key role.
Bangladesh Is Malaysia’s Leading Source of Migrant Workers
His name is Aminul Islam, but he goes by Amin. He’s a highly controversial member of Malaysia’s elite. Some people say he’s responsible for many of the troubles faced by incoming Bangladeshi migrant workers. In his first interview with global media in July, Amin told Bloomberg News that he has devoted his career to helping migrant workers — and the issues they experience have nothing to do with him.
In the past 10 years, companies Amin founded have generated more than $100 million in profit, filings show. It’s unclear how wealthy he is. Amin didn’t respond to a request for comment on his wealth.
Before he became so powerful, Amin made the journey from Bangladesh himself, eventually arriving in Malaysia in 1988 at age 21. He worked tirelessly, according to four people who say they knew him then. They called him a smooth operator: understated, soft-spoken and charming, with a knack for cultivating relationships. Behind the affable veneer was a shrewd businessman, they said.
A few years in, he established a company providing worker housing and transportation. Later on, he started bringing in tens of thousands of workers himself.
In 2008, Amin founded a company called Bestinet. It developed software to digitize Malaysia’s paper-based recruitment. He pitched it to the government, saying it would curtail corruption.
Some government officials had doubts, suspecting Amin of exploiting migrant workers, Nizam Jakel, a Malaysian businessman hired to lobby for Bestinet, said in testimony in a lawsuit years later that accused him and others of trying to take over Amin’s business. (Amin’s side won and Nizam’s side appealed. The suit was then settled on undisclosed terms. Nizam declined to comment for this story.)
The International Labour Organization reviewed Amin’s system at his request in 2013. The United Nations body called it innovative and comprehensive but not “fool-proof in protecting migrants from excessive fees,” adding it “does not know of the credentials or competence of Bestinet,” according to comments reviewed by Bloomberg News.
Two years later, Malaysia adopted his system.
Four people who know Amin say he understood the importance of powerful allies for doing business in Malaysia. He put several former senior government officials on his companies’ boards. He forged an alliance with an influential politician, Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, according to people who know the men.
In 2015, when Malaysia adopted Bestinet’s system, Zahid was home affairs minister, overseeing immigration. That year, he announced Malaysia would bring in as many as 1.5 million Bangladeshi workers. It was a win for Bangladesh.
There was a catch. All recruitment orders had to be routed to just 10 of Bangladesh’s more than 1,000 agencies, ending open competition. Three former Bangladeshi officials said Malaysia insisted on the unprecedented arrangement. If Bangladesh didn’t comply, according to the officials, Malaysia said it would recruit elsewhere.
Amin and Zahid played key roles in this, according to six people who say they discussed the matter with Amin or were briefed on it. Amin chose the agencies and Zahid handled the politics, the people said. Zahid also instructed a Ministry of Home Affairs official to issue Bestinet a letter of acceptance for its software, the official later told a parliamentary committee. The ministry issued the letter “before finalizing the terms and methods of procurement,” the committee found in 2025. A representative for Zahid didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Four people, who attended meetings or socialized with them in this period, described their interactions as friendly. In the July interview, Amin said Malaysia selected the agencies, and denied being friends with Zahid. A representative for Zahid declined to comment. In 2018, Zahid denied any involvement with Bestinet.
Limiting the agencies “had all the hallmarks of a syndication or cartel” to control recruitment costs, according to a 2018 lawsuit against the 10 firms and Bangladesh’s government by agencies that lost business. It didn’t name Amin or Bestinet as defendants but said Amin helped devise the plan. The firms weren’t picked on merit, the suit alleged. Six had never sent workers to Malaysia. The defendants and Amin denied the allegations. The suit was later withdrawn with no findings of wrongdoing.
These 10 agencies began unlawfully charging workers an additional fee, known as a syndicate fee, of around $1,350, according to allegations in letters from Bangladeshi agents to their government, witness statements collected by Bangladeshi criminal investigators, and interviews with 17 agents in both countries. If the fee wasn’t paid, in cash, they wouldn’t return workers’ passports, according to allegations in the interviews and documents.
Ruhul Amin, the owner of recruitment agency Catharsis International, collected the syndicate fees, which amounted to more than $1 billion over a 10-year period, according to allegations in a letter signed by 453 Bangladeshi agents that haven’t been verified by Bloomberg. If agencies in the group of 10, which was later increased to 100, didn’t pass on the syndicate fees to him, Bestinet’s system wouldn’t give them any new orders, according to interviews with the 17 agents.
This fee and other charges pushed the per-person recruitment cost to as high as $6,600, according to a 2024 memo prepared for Prime Minister Anwar by the Madani Research Centre, a Kuala Lumpur think tank. That’s more than twice what Bangladeshis paid before Bestinet became involved, according to the ILO, and more than double what Indonesians and Nepalis pay, according to agents who recruit there.
How Everyone Gets A Cut
Amin said he’s never heard of syndicate fees. “I never met a single worker, so how do I collect money?” he said. “People talk this way because they think they’re losing money because of us. We are the threat of the industry.”
Three of the 10 agencies — Catharsis, Prantik Travels & Tourism Ltd. and Career Overseas Consultants Ltd. — denied collecting unlawful fees. The others didn’t respond to requests for comment. Catharsis was selected on merit and “never involved in any kind of unauthorized financial transaction,” the agency said, adding Ruhul “is a proponent of ethical recruitment.”
It’s unclear how many of the more than 800,000 Bangladeshis who came to Malaysia since 2016 paid syndicate fees, or where the money went. There’s no evidence it went to Amin. But Bangladesh’s police arrested dozens of the selected recruitment agents in 2024 in an investigation into alleged money laundering, extortion and trafficking of migrant workers. They asked Malaysia to stop using Bestinet’s software and called for Ruhul, who had left Bangladesh, and Amin to be extradited. The pair played key roles in a system that “fraudulently extorted money” from workers, Bangladesh’s branch of Interpol wrote to Malaysia, causing them “physical and mental torture.”
Amin denied the allegations. Minister of Home Affairs Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said in October that Malaysia’s police are in touch with their Bangladeshi counterparts. Amin hasn’t been extradited.
The morning after Shofiqul called home he gasped for air, waking his roommates. They knelt around his mattress as he went into convulsions. Then he died.
A Bloomberg reporter visited the building a week later. His roommates, who had also been promised jobs, and other Bangladeshi workers living nearby gathered to recount what happened. They said the landlord called an ambulance that took away his body. Neither the workers nor Shofiqul’s widow knew the cause of death.
The men said Shofiqul had begun to despair about his situation. His visa had expired, so if he sought help from authorities he would have been deported. His options were to wait for his employer, Petrazehra Bhd., to provide the job, or disappear into Malaysia’s underworld of undocumented migrants.
Shofiqul “clearly is a victim of human trafficking,” said Latheefa Koya, a former chief commissioner of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission, or MACC. She described him as an extreme outcome of the institutional corruption in Malaysia’s recruitment of Bangladeshi workers. She and five other current or former senior members of Malaysia’s government outlined how it permeates every step of the process: Government staff seek bribes from companies, which pass the costs on to agents in both countries, who pass them on to the workers. Because bringing in workers has become so lucrative, some companies deliberately over-recruit or promise fake jobs, they said, to illegally subcontract workers. The recruitment fees sustain the system. Everyone gets a cut, and the workers pay.
“This involves so many layers of people,” said Mahathir Mohamad, a former Malaysian prime minister who sought to reform the system. “Even ministers.”
Petrazehra was approved to recruit 1,500 Bangladeshis. But according to documents reviewed by Bloomberg, it had recorded no revenue in the previous two years. Its owner, Muhaimin Mohd Fadhilah, didn’t respond to requests for comment. Bangladesh’s government has said at least 8,000 workers didn’t get promised jobs in recent years. A Malaysian official said the true figure is probably in the tens of thousands.
Recruitment costs affect workers even when the jobs exist. Malaysia prohibits them from switching companies, meaning they must stay in one job until they’re debt-free, creating a dangerous dependency. Since 2019, US authorities have sanctioned eight Malaysian companies for alleged forced labor, taking advantage of workers through debt bondage, threats or intimidation, while Malaysian suppliers of several global corporations have faced similar scrutiny. Documents and interviews with labor activists show the cases have a common feature: Bangladeshi workers with recruitment debts.
Malaysia’s cabinet discussed these matters after Anwar became prime minister in 2022, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations. He campaigned on eliminating graft and even called for an investigation into Bestinet. The MACC had started a probe. Cabinet officials knew Amin played a central role in Bangladeshi worker recruitment via his control over the agencies, which escalated costs, the people say.
Eliminating Bestinet as a government contractor would be a first step, some officials reasoned. In late 2023, the cabinet decided to cut ties after Bestinet’s contract expired the following year, according to people familiar with the matter. It looked like Amin’s run was ending.
Amin tapped his network. He visited the MACC to speak with its chief, Azam Baki, according to two people briefed on the matter. The commission’s investigation was dropped, the people said, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals. The MACC declined to comment. Amin said he went there to give statements but denied ever meeting Azam.
Amin also asked top officials to lobby Anwar to extend Bestinet’s term, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Zahid, who is now deputy prime minister, privately pushed the prime minister, the people said. At the end of a cabinet meeting in early 2024, Anwar made a surprise announcement: Bestinet would get an extension.
Amin said it was “based on merit” and he wasn’t involved.
On the morning of the interview last July, Amin arrived at Kuala Lumpur’s Mandarin Oriental Hotel flanked by two attorneys and Bestinet’s chief executive officer, Ismail Mohd Noor.
He wore a linen blazer and a shirt with cuffs monogrammed “D.S.A.” for Dato’ Sri Amin — an honorary title. On one wrist was a smartwatch, on the other what appeared to be a Cecil Purnell, a timepiece that costs more than $100,000.
Amin and Ismail talked for three hours, saying they wanted people to know the truth.
The two men said Bestinet’s system sped up worker processing, weeded out application fraud and eliminated in-person meetings that invite bribery. They said it ensured worker health checks can’t be gamed and companies can’t bring in uninsured workers. It eliminated illicit charges and made recruitment cheaper, safer and cleaner, they said.
Amin likened his system to a highway. He can’t control how people drive and isn’t responsible if officials approve bogus applications or agents overcharge workers, he said. Authorities have scrutinized Bestinet and found no malpractice, he said.
Unscrupulous agents in Bangladesh are the problem, Amin said. He stopped them from exploiting workers, he said, and now they’re slandering him.
“People keep on talking about Bestinet, keep on talking about me: ‘They take over this, take over that, monopoly, political connector, political influence’ — a lot of things,” he said. He said he devoted his career, spanning 38 years and seven Malaysian governments, to helping migrant workers. “We are the ones who get the blame because we provide a solution.”
Amin was also critical of what happened to Shofiqul, whom he said he didn’t know. He questioned Shofiqul’s employer for bringing him in without a job, and Malaysia’s government for allowing that to happen.
Meanwhile, after Shofiqul’s death, his still-jobless roommates quietly disappeared, probably into Malaysia’s black economy.
“They have to pay back what they borrowed,” said Santiago, the former member of parliament. His argument is the system itself is the villain, and within it, many people are at fault.
The migrant workers “are victims of a big network that’s managed by elites and government operatives,” he said. He predicted Malaysia will suffer the consequences once global companies take notice.
“The path from Bangladesh to Malaysia is one of the most exploitative labor routes in Asia,” said Andy Hall, a labor activist. “Bangladeshis work all over Malaysia’s economy. If you’re a global company buying from there, there’s no chance your supply chain is clean.”
Twelve days after that morning in early 2024, Shofiqul’s body was flown to Dhaka. Hosne Ara made the day-long journey from Mulgram to collect her husband’s remains. He was buried near his father’s home in the village.
Hosne Ara said the agency refunded about half of his recruitment fee, and a few Bangladeshi workers in Malaysia sent some money. But she has to repay the rest, and she doesn’t know how.
Later, she and the children made a short journey over narrow roads that cut across the plains of the Padma River, back to the village where she was born. They moved in with her parents and brothers. She rarely goes back to Mulgram, saying she doesn’t feel safe there after dark.
The dragon fruit trees that Shofiqul planted are still growing in the village, she said. Nobody tends to them anymore.
Source : Bloomberg
The cost of mishandling the Bestinet deal
THE story of Bestinet Sdn Bhd and its 13-year dealings with the Malaysian government to handle foreign workers coming into the country underscores the lucrative world of providing manpower.
The business is so profitable that often individuals who are supposedly close to the government of the day go on a “fishing expedition” to try to get a slice of the pie, hence eventually increasing the cost for employers and workers.
Bestinet, which is at the centre of a business that is estimated to be worth RM40 billion a year, has survived five prime ministers, four home ministers and a legal suit that almost cost the owner of the company dearly.
The biggest source of foreign workers is Bangladesh, where the owner of Bestinet is from. Datuk Seri Aminul Islam Abdul Nor, who has been granted Malaysian permanent resident status, founded Bestinet, which developed the Foreign Workers Centralised Management System (FWCMS).
The FWCMS has 15 modules and is supposed to cover all aspects of processing the documents of foreign workers from all countries. However, the Immigration Department has used it mainly to process the entry of Bangladeshi workers.
Issues pertaining to the government and Bestinet can be traced back to 2014 when current Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi was the home minister.
After a series of discussions with the government and alleged intervention from influential individuals supposedly acting as “consultants” in return for fees of up to RM200 million, Bestinet finally received the letter of award in early 2018.
At the time, the contract was only for six years, from 2018 to 2024. For providing the services of FWCMS to the Immigration Department, Bestinet was to get RM100 per foreign worker.
The Public Private Partnership Unit (Ukas) of the Prime Minister’s Department had recommended that the charge be RM86 but Bestinet wanted RM120.
Also in 2017, new shareholders, who were supposedly close to Ahmad Zahid then, were poised to come into Bestinet just before it was to secure the contract from the government.
Based on court documents, Aminul rescinded all shareholders’ agreements that were signed in October 2017 and managed to hang on to Bestinet. The suit was dismissed in 2021.
However, after 2018, the agreement was never signed off and Bestinet was not allowed to collect fees, although the Immigration Department was using some of its FWCMS modules. The matter prolonged until this year when a new agreement was signed on Sept 3. More details were available to the public during the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) grilling of government officials, particularly from the Home Ministry.
Under the new agreement, Bestinet gets RM215 for processing and issuing the temporary foreign worker permit (PLKS) for six years for workers from all countries. In return, Bestinet will drop all claims against the government.
An estimated 2.5 million foreign workers enter Malaysia a year. On that count, Bestinet gets RM537 million per year or RM3.2 billion over six years.
The money is part of the levy that employees pay the government. So, effectively, it is either the employers or foreign workers who end up paying the additional cost because there was no proper oversight on the part of the government in its dealings with Bestinet in the last 10 years.
According to documents from the PAC proceedings, officials from the Home Ministry stated that the fees of RM215 was set by a committee comprising high-level government officials, including representatives from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC).
The AGC felt that Bestinet had a strong claim and subsequently the committee recommended a new agreement with higher charges for it to claw back all the fees that were not collected between 2018 and 2024. Many questions surround Bestinet’s dealings with the government. For one, Bestinet received the letter of award in January 2018 but it was not a firm document. Why didn’t the Pakatan Harapan 1.0 government, and subsequent two other governments that came to power between May 2018 and November 2022 review the agreement with Bestinet?
Prior to May 2018, Bestinet was the subject of interest of certain persons supposedly wielding much power within the Barisan Nasional government then. In 2021, the court ruled in favour of Aminul deciding that he was coerced to sign off control of Bestinet and two other companies.
The latest agreement was signed off in September this year. Were there any hidden hands involved in the deal?
Finally, the founder of Bestinet and another person are wanted by the authorities in Bangladesh. It has been reported that the new government in Bangladesh also does not want Malaysia to use the FWCMS to process the documents of workers from that country. Aminul has denied any wrongdoing.
Nevertheless, will there be any implications for the entry of foreign workers from Bangladesh if the matter is not resolved soon?
Source : The Edge
Source : Malaysia Now
Source : Finance Twitter
KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 7, 2026: Saudi Arabi has accused the PAS ulama as a terrorist to Arab countries.
