KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 17 — A local woman claimed to have suffered losses amounting to over RM1.4 million after meeting a “South African engineer working in New Zealand”.
Petaling Jaya District Police Chief ACP Mohamad Fakhrudin Abdul Hamid said the 54-year-old victim had met the foreign man through Facebook in April and continued the “friendship” through the WhatsApp application.
He said they had never met and since April, the suspect had asked the self-employed victim to advance her money to buy raw materials for an unknown project.
“As a result of trusting him, the victim made 37 transactions to four different accounts totalling RM1,445,900.
“Not long after, the victim received a call from a delivery company (Global International Diplomatic Services) claiming there was a ‘delivery’ believed to be from the suspect for the victim,” he said in a statement today.
Mohamad Fakhrudin said on September 8, two suspects met the victim and brought a bag containing US$4,200,000 (about RM19,813,500) allegedly for the victim.
However, the victim was told that she needs to have the Origin Certificate and Ownership Certificate to receive it, otherwise, she would have to pay RM170,000.
“Since she had run out of money, the victim refused to make the payment and soon after realised that she was duped by the suspect and lodged a police report earlier this month,” he said.
He said following that, the police arrested three African suspects at a restaurant in the capital last Friday.
In addition, the investigation found that all the suspects are United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) card holders and have been in Malaysia since 2019.
He said the suspects, aged between 35 and 48, were remanded for four days. — Bernama
