An Australian refugees' rights activist says a tanker smuggling Sri Lankan immigrants would never have made it to Australia or New Zealand.
Malaysian Police say the tanker was carrying 131 Sri Lankans headed for New Zealand and Australia. Photo: Royal Malaysia Police
Malaysian authorities halted the modified tanker with 131 people on board on Tuesday and a group of Indonesains and Malaysians were arrested.
Malaysia's national police chief Mohamad Fuzi Harun said the large-scale and cunning human smuggling syndicate had been operating for a year and had connections in New Zealand, as well as in Sri Lanka, Australia, Indonesia and Malaysia.
However a spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition, Ian Rintoul, said he doubted the ship could have gone far.
"It's got a long way to come, even from Malaysia... and certainly the accommodation... it's not equipped for any long distance thing.
So I think, on the face of it, there's no possibility that it could be thinking of attempting to go to New Zealand."
However he said a ship that size could reach Christmas Island if it was able to avoid the authorities that watch over the region.
"It's a fairly ambitious kind of operation and it's unlikely, given the level of surveillence between Indonesia and Australia, that a boat that size would make it.
He said the authorities were likely overplaying the level of complexity and contacts.
"It could be as small as a phonecall made to a relative in Australia," he said.
"It's not really a highly efficient operation that we're talking about, I don't think we're looking at a very well equipped international syndicate.
"They would know very well in the first place not to try that kind of voyage with a steel hulled ship from Malaysia."
