SEREMBAN: A 52-year-old female manager of a bank in Kuala Lumpur was among the latest victims of a Macau scam after losing RM605,000 of her savings.
The victim from Taman Tuanku Jaafar lodged a police report with Seremban police on Tuesday, almost two months after her encounter with the scammers.
The manager had received a call on the evening of Jan 26 from a woman who claimed she worked for an insurance company.
The scammer claimed there was an accident claim made under the victim’s name for RM68,800.
When the victim denied holding an insurance policy with the company, the scammer transferred the call to an accomplice, purportedly a “police sergeant attached to the CID at the Pudu police station”.
The sergeant told the manager that her particulars were being misused and “she had shady links with an assistant director of an airline”.
The call was then transferred to another accomplice of the scammer, a “police inspector”, who told the victim she was involved in money-laundering.
A fourth scammer, a woman, took over the call from then on, claiming to be a deputy public prosecutor and told the victim that a warrant of arrest had been issued to detain her.
Terrified and falling for the false threats, the victim pleaded not to be arrested and denied being involved in any criminal activities.
She told the scammer that the RM605,000 she had in her savings was her hard-earned money she had withdrawn from a trust fund and the Employees Provident Fund.
Negri Sembilan police commercial crime investigation department head Supt Aibee Ab Ghani said the scammer, who posed as a police inspector, had ordered the victim to transfer the cash into a mule bank account he provided, claiming it was for “investigation purposes”.
He said after doing so, the victim never heard from the scammers and had lost all her money.
Aibee said the main factor that contributes to the survival of scam syndicates are mule bank accounts.
“Without mule bank accounts, scam syndicates will wind up as their activities will come to a standstill.”
Scam syndicates obtain mule bank accounts by renting it from account holders or paying unsuspecting individuals a sum, often just a few hundred ringgit, to open a bank account and take control of it.
Aibee advised the public to be aware of these various kinds of scams and not fall victim to them.
