Two women fall prey to love scams, lose RM25,360 in total

Scam alert. — DayakDaily.com file pic // Photo: Pixabay

SIBU, June 25: Naivety caused two women to be cheated of a total of RM25,360 in two separate love scams.

Sibu district police chief, ACP Stanley Jonathan Ringgit said in the first case, a 38-year-old clerk had lodged a police report claiming that she was was conned of RM15,000 by a person calling himself ‘Mr Lukiet’ after falling for him on social media.

“The suspect told the victim on May 22 that he was a consultant specialist for drilling equipment from Korea but was residing in Kuching,” he said.

On the same day that they got to know each other, the suspect promised her that he would come to Sibu to marry her.

“However at 7pm that evening, the suspect told her that his bank account had been frozen and that he needed RM15,000 to buy a drilling machine. On his request, the victim had on June 23 made two bank transfers amounting to RM15,000 to him without suspecting anything,” said Stanley.

It was only when the suspect demanded another RM35,000 that she realized that she had been duped.

The second case involved a 40-year-old woman, who lost RM10,236 to a ‘Dr Zhang’ from China after meeting him on a dating app on May 3.

“After a month, the suspect told the victim that he would be sending her a gift worth RM80,000 as a sign of his love for her.”

Unaware of the intention of the suspect, the victim had on June 11 upon his request, transferred RM6,000 to him for his son to pay his university tuition fees.

She made two more bank transfers on June 18 and 23 of RM4,236 to an account number provided as a fee for the release of the gift which was supposedly being detained by a port in China before she realised that she had fallen victim to another love scam when the parcel did not arrive on June 24 as promised.

Both cases are being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating. — DayakDaily