Lawyer pockets RM25mil in loans scam

JOHOR BARU: Police are probing a lawyer for alleged criminal breach of trust (CBT) involving loans for properties worth more than RM25mil.

It is learnt that the lawyer, whose firm was previously on the panel of a commercial bank, allegedly prepared fake documents when declaring the purchase amounts to the bank.

The lawyer is also believed to have mani­pulated the price stated in the sale and purchase agreements before submitting them to the bank for loan approvals, sources said.

“Once the loans were approved, he then kept the money.

“He told his clients that their loan applications had been rejected by the bank,” they added.

The transactions involved several companies, which had made purchases ranging from RM1mil to RM9mil.

The deals included both land and commercial property purchases, the sources said.

It is believed that the lawyer could have been doing this for several months.

The bank only realised the alleged fraud when it did not receive any repayments from the “borrowers”.

The sources said the bank then found that adjustments had apparently been made to the loan documents.

It carried out an internal investigation and lodged a police report recently.

Police are also working to ascertain if the man had any help from “insiders” within the bank to help speed up or approve the loans.

The bank has also lodged a complaint with the relevant agencies, including the Bar disciplinary committee, over the matter.

It is learnt that police have formed a special team to investigate the case under Section 409 of the Penal Code for CBT.

In an unrelated case, a housewife in her 30s from Ledang was reportedly cheated of her life savings of more than RM120,000 in a parcel scam.

The woman’s nightmare began after she befriended a man via social media and decided to buy some items from London which he said were on “huge discount”.

Among the items were handbags, jewellery, perfumes, watches and a laptop.

Sources said that the “friend” told her the goods were valuable and she could pay once she received them in Malaysia.

“But recently, she started getting calls that the items had been detained by Customs at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport and she had to pay for several types of certificates and processing fees – including an anti-terrorism certificate – before the goods would be released,” they added.

It is learnt that the woman started banking in sums of RM6,000 to RM15,000 until her family found out and told her that she had been duped.

She then lodged a police report.