Malaysians fall prey to scam

SEVERAL Malaysian Muslims keen on investing in the growing haj and umrah market in Saudi Arabia have fallen for ascam, reported Harian Metro.

Allegedly operating under the name Makkah Islamic Hotel, a syndicate was luring Malaysians into investing in hotel rooms in Mecca.

The investment for each room was RM3,500 and the investment was touted as syariah-compliant.

The daily said the investors were promised profits of up to 360% a year.

A victim, who asked to be identified only as Yushaimi, in his 30s, said he invested RM35,000 late last year after being introduced to the scheme by a good friend.

“The agent said the hotel sector in Mecca has the potential to generate high profits since the Saudi Arabia government is focusing on developing the facilities in the area,” he said.

The agent also told him that the scheme aimed to generate income for Muslims, he said.

He said he started to suspect that something was amiss after failing to receive the monthly payments for his share of profit since April.

The daily said the scam was also known as Mecca Fund Global and was being monitored by Bank Negara Malaysia and the police.

Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (Bukit Aman) director Datuk Acryl Sani (pic) said the Makkah Islamic Hotel scheme was flagged after it was linked to Mecca Fund Global.

“We are investigating the link between both schemes as they use the same modus operandi, promising high profits for investment in Mecca,” he said, adding that according to reports there were many similar scams using Islam as a front.

> Harian Metro also reported that a number of foreign traders in the Selayang wholesale market have been cheating consumers by recalibrating their weighing scales.

A reporter from the daily allegedly found that some squid he had bought from a trader there, weighed 1kg on the seller’s scale but was only 720g on another scale.

?  Found in Translation is compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with this ' >'sign, it denotes a separate news item.