(AFP) A Malaysian arrested in the Philippines last week with 104 passports has no links with terrorist networks and was merely a travel agent arranging visas as claimed, Philippines immigration officials said today.

Airport police detained Azmi Salleh, 42, on Thursday as he tried to board a Kuwaiti Airlines flight bound for Bangkok. He was also carrying 50,000 dollars.

Authorities said after the arrest they wanted to determine if he had any links to terrorist outfits in Southeast Asia linked to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network and his "true intentions of going to the Philippines".

After a thorough investigation, they found he was, as claimed, a travel agent arranging for visas for a group of Malaysian pilgrims to Mecca, Islam's holiest site in Saudi Arabia, the immigration bureau said.

"He would just be deported soon," an immigration spokesman said,

The man was apparently trying to circumvent regulations that limit visas for Saudi Arabia to only one percent of population per country by arranging visas for his Malaysian clients from the Philippines, an official said.

Salleh also violated Philippines customs regulations, which set a 10,000 dollar limit to the amount of foreign currency being taken out of the country.

Tight security

Security at all Philippine airports and seaports has been tightened to thwart any possible terrorist attacks.

Last month, Philippine police arrested an Indonesian man that led to the seizure of a cache of bombs in the south.

The man, Fathur al-Ghozi, is now in custody and is believed to be an explosives expert of the Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant Islamic group in the region with alleged links to al-Qaeda.