GEORGE TOWN: Penang police have successfully busted an international medium fraud syndicate after arresting five Chinese nationals in a raid at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA), on April 27 for being involved in fraud cases involving a loss of RM124,400.
Penang deputy police chief Datuk Fisol Salleh said their arrests followed a police report by five elderly women in the state who were victims of the syndicate before police carried out intelligence to successfully track down the suspects at KLIA.
“Police managed to arrest a foreign man and four foreign women aged 40 to 50 at KLIA when they wanted to flee back to their country of origin (China) and based on the syndicate’s travel records, they have been travelling in and out of the country using social passes several times.
“Our investigation found that the syndicate has been active in carrying out medium fraud activities in Penang since January and they have deceived victims with the sale of fake medicine and face-to-face prayers to cure diseases,” he said at a press conference here today.
He said the syndicate’s modus operandi was that they would move early in the morning to look for elderly victims, especially women, and talked to them to find out if they had illnesses before offering medicine to treat the chronic illness they were facing and giving them a phone number for the treatment.
Fisol said the believing victim then contacted the syndicate for treatment before the suspect set up a certain location supposedly to carry out a spell and treatment ceremony which only took place in a vehicle.
He said after the ceremony was over, the suspects would hand over a package, and the victim only realised she had been cheated after opening the package given by the syndicate to find it only contained stones and a bottle of mineral water before making a police report on the incident.
He said based on the investigation, the syndicate had several other groups that carried out the same activities and police also did not rule out the possibility that the five arrested suspects were also involved in medium fraud cases in Johor.
“Following the arrest of all the suspects, the police confiscated nine mobile phones, five luggage bags, various types of jewellery, 11 watches of various brands and 943 pieces of Chinese Yuan amounting to RM60,853,” he said.
He said all of them were remanded until tomorrow to assist investigation under Section 420 of the Penal Code for fraud.
“From 2021 to April this year, Penang police have received a total of 13 cases related to medium scams involving a loss of RM1.03 million, therefore we advise the public not to hand over money or jewellery to strangers and to contact the police if approached by suspicious individuals,” he said. – BERNAMA
