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KUCHING, June 7: A 69-year-old retiree fell victim to a Macam scam, losing RM449,200 to scammers impersonating police officers.
According to Sarawak Commissioner of Police Datuk Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri in a statement today, on Nov 19, 2022, the victim who used to work in the oil and gas industry receiving a call from a “Diana binti Abdullah”, who claimed to be from the Health Ministry. “Diana” claimed that there was a phone number registered under the victim’s name which had come under the surveillance of Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) due to the victim’s involvement in a defamation case.
The call was then passed to a “Sergeant Vincent”, an “Inspector Herman” and an “Inspector Kho” from Kota Kinabalu Sabah, who claimed that the victim had been involving in money laundering and drug distribution.
On Nov 21, 2022, the victim was instructed by a suspect to open a new bank account at a financial institution in Kuching for the purpose of monitoring the victim’s money flow.
The victim was then instructed to give his banking information, which included the bank account number, PIN number and email to the suspect, and register a new phone number of 014-394-4667 for online banking purposes.
Following that, the victim was instructed to transfer his ASB funds amounting to RM390,000 to the newly opened account.
Apart from that, the victim was told to sell all his shares in a financial institution amounting to RM59,263 and transferred it to the new account.
“Subsequently on May 30, 2023, the victim checked with the financial institution in Kuching and found that his money amounting to RM449,200 had been transferred from his new bank account in stages to two unknown individuals’ accounts between Nov 21, 2022 to Dec 2, 2022.
“The victim only realised he had been a victim of phone fraud after noticing that only RM63.77 remained in his account balance, leading him to lodge a police report,” said Mohd Azman. — DayakDaily
