JOHOR BARU, July 14 — Fifteen individuals, including three women, were arrested in several locations in Johor Baru and Iskandar Puteri after being allegedly involved in illegal money lending syndicates by loan sharks.
The suspects, aged between 22 and 43, were arrested in a simultaneous raid by a state police operation at 13 locations in the two districts between 8am and 1pm yesterday.
Johor police chief Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat said preliminary investigations revealed that all the suspects were believed to be members of the same syndicate that authorities had previously crippled.
He said the syndicate was known as Geng Ah Hao, and was known to be active as Ah Long or loan sharks.
“The syndicate’s members have been active in illegal and unlicensed money lending activities for a long time. They are also believed to be involved in threatening their victims by splashing paint, as well as putting fire to vehicles and homes,” he said during a media conference at the Johor police contingent headquarters here.
During the operation, Kamarul Zaman said investigators also seized seven vehicles of various types, along with car keys, 44 mobile phones, 22 automated teller machine (ATM) bank cards, five laptops, four company stamps, 19 sets of loan-related documents and two tablets.
He said the suspects are currently in police custody and have been remanded for three days until this Sunday to assist in investigations under Section 5(2) of the Money Lenders Act 1951 for unlicensed money lending activities.
In a separate case, Kamarul Zaman said police busted a job scam syndicate involving Singaporeans at a residence in Taman Perling here on June 26.
He said four suspects, including a woman, were arrested due to cooperation with the Commercial Affairs Department of the Singapore Police Force (SPF), Bukit Aman‘s Federal Commercial Crime Investigation Department and the Johor police.
“The suspects, aged between 27 and 40, targeted victims who were Singaporeans using bank accounts from the republic for payment matters that resulted in a loss of S$2.9 million (about RM10 million),” he said.
Kamarul Zaman said the job scam syndicate is believed to have been active for the past two months by offering non-existent work opportunities in Singapore where 59 Singaporeans have fallen victim.
He said investigations found that no Malaysians were victims and the syndicate.
“The syndicate also did not use local bank accounts, but only used Johor as their base location to operate their call centres in an effort to avoid detection,” he said, adding that the suspects were later handed over to the SPF after the Singapore courts issued arrest warrants against them.
