The Malaysian authorities will launch a crackdown on an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in the country, making it the biggest ever so far to flush out unwanted foreigners.

The campaign will involve some 135,000 personnel from the Immigration Department, the National Registration Department and local councils as well as soldiers, police and volunteers.

It will be conducted in Kuala Lumpur , Selangor, Penang and Johor which have been identified as the dens of illegal immigrants. Once arrested, they will be expelled immediately from Malaysia .

Immigration Department Director-General Datuk Alias Ahmad was quoted by local media as saying the operation aims at illegal workers from Indonesia, Bangladesh, Nepal and Vietnam.

He said his department will coordinate with diplomatic representative agencies of foreign countries through Wisma Putra to grant passports to them.

The crackdown also targets those who registered the Illegal Immigrant Comp­rehensive Settle­ment Prog­ramme or Programme 6P but did not turn up for further procedures, he said.

During the registration from August to November 2011, about 1.3 million out of an estimated 2 million undocumented foreigners registered.

Among those registered, 500,000 applications for legalisation were processed while 330,000 were repatriated.-VNA