MELAKA: A woman teacher suffered losses amounting to about RM199,111 after falling prey to a Macau Scam syndicate masquerading as an insurance agent.
Melaka Commercial CID chief Supt E Sundra Rajan said the victim aged 50, received a call on Oct 10 from a suspect posing as an insurance agent who accused the teacher of making four insurance claims for RM76,800.
“The victim denied the matter, but was connected to Pudu police station and spoke to an SM Azman who said the teacher was involved in laundering RM2.8 million with a male suspect.
“The call was later connected to Insp Mastura who told her she could help to settle the case before another call came from Puan Yong and Tuan Chong claiming to be the officers of the case and they said the victim would be charged in the Kota Kinabalu High Court apart from asking her to pay RM568,000 as bail,” he said in a statement here today.
Sundra said as the victim did not have the money to pay for the bail, the victim took loans from two banks amounting to RM380,888.
He said two days later (Nov 12), the victim received a call from Puan Yong who ordered the victim to change the telephone number on her bank card to a number given by the suspect apart from ordering all the victim’s savings from various accounts to be transferred into one account.
“Without feeling suspicious, the victim followed all the instructions of the suspect and after that the woman was contacted by Puan Yong again to borrow some more but the teacher did not do so as she was beginning to feel suspicious.
“The victim later checked her account and found RM199,111 had been withdrawn. Feeling duped, the victim lodged a police report yesterday (Dec 7 ) at Tiang Dua police station,” he said.
Meanwhile, in another development, Sundra said a 55-year-old housewife also lost RM9,850 through a similar modus operandi when she was duped by a suspect posing as a Health Ministry employee who informed her that her identity card has been abused to take medicine at a government clinic in Ipoh, Perak.
He added both cases were investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating and advised the people to be wary of such scam calls. — Bernama
