JOHOR BARU, Aug 23 — A female engineer lost more than RM260,000 after she was deceived by a syndicate using the Tinder social application platform that offered her a non-existent coupon investment scheme here recently.

Johor Baru North deputy police chief Superintendent Fariz Ammar Abdullah said members of the district’s commercial crime investigation division received a report of the incident last Sunday.

"The 40-year-old victim, who is a local, informed police that she met the suspect through the dating application Tinder in early July this year.

"In mid-July, the victim was tricked into buying an investment scheme coupon sold by the suspect who claimed he is a local.

"The suspect had promised the victim that she would receive a return of five per cent of her initial investment within 30 minutes after she purchased the coupon," said Fariz Ammar in a statement here today.

He said the victim then used her savings to make 17 online transactions into the bank accounts provided by the suspect.

He added the victim was also given a website link to see profits made. However, the link could not be accessed.

"The victim then failed to contact the suspect. As a result of the incident, the victim lost a total of RM261,000," he said.

Fariz Ammar said the case is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating and those convicted will face one to 10 years imprisonment, in addition to canning and fines.

He cautioned the public to be careful when dealing with strangers or virtual acquaintances, including making large transactions for suspicious schemes.

"The public can download the Royal Malaysian Police’s (RMP) CCID application (on their mobile phones) for review purposes before making any payment or transactions," he said.

Tinder is a dating application offering a gateway to relationships and even marriage.

However, of late, the social application has been used as a tool by scammers, on the pretext of romance, to reach out to would-be victims.