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The scam has seen thousands of Malaysians being duped into forking out money to “lovers’ they had first befriended on social networking platforms.
Selangor Commercial Crime Investigation Department chief ACP Mohd Sakri Arifin revealed the shocking statistics as he announced his team’s success in taking down one of the syndicates involved in this scam.
“We raided an entertainment premises in Setia Walk, Puchong, at almost midnight on Nov 16,” he said at a press conference today.
He said 36 members of the syndicate were nabbed in the raid. Among them were eight Malaysian women, 18 Nigerian men, and three Nigerian women. The rest hailed from various countries, including Indonesia and Thailand.
One of the Malaysian women arrested is on the police’s wanted list for her involvement in a case that saw losses of over RM2.9 million.
Sakri added that the first arrest led to another, this time involving a Malaysian man, a Sarawakian woman, and six Nigerian men.
“The local suspects played the role of the account holders, and the recruiters. They had also pretended to be from the Immigration Department and courier companies,” said Sakri.
“The Nigerians were the masterminds and the ones who contacted the victims.”
Their modus operandi included befriending the victims on Facebook and Twitter, among others, by claiming to be citizens of the United Kingdom. Their profile pictures are of either an attractive white male or female.
“After a while, the scammers tell the victims that as a token of their relationship, they had sent them a package containing jewelleries or a stack of US dollars or UK’s pound sterling.”
The scammers’ local partners would then call the victims pretending to be from the Customs Department.
“They tell the victims that the parcels had been intercepted by the authorities, and demand payments to release them,” Sakri said.
“They claim that if the victims fail to comply with the directives, a police report would be lodged for offences related to money laundering.”
As seen in many other cases reported in the past, the scammers will disappear the moment the transactions are completed.
He said the syndicate had “easily fooled the victims”. The suspects, during questioning, revealed that they were students enrolled at private colleges in the Klang Valley.
“Most of them live luxuriously in the country, moving around with their student pass. They also scam victims from other countries, while using Malaysia as their base.
“This can affect the country’s good name and that is why we will continue our efforts to put a stop to their activities.”
The Star had in March this year reported that the African scams were so successful that Malaysian women ended up giving away over RM71 million to love scammers last year alone.
They topped the list of victims who lost a total of RM1 billion in online scams reported in 2015.
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