Bookshop employee loses RM50,000 in Macau Scam

BINTULU (Bernama): A bookshop employee has fallen victim to a Macau Scam after being cheated of RM50,400 by a person claiming to be a policeman from Penang.

Sarawak Commercial Crime Investigation Department head Supt Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah said the victim, a 34-year-old man working in a bookshop here, was initially contacted by one Cindy Wong, who claimed to be from the Penang Customs Department.

“The victim was told that the bookshop owed RM51,076 in unpaid Goods and Services Tax (GST),” he said in a statement here.

Mustafa said the victim was then purportedly connected to the Penang Contingent Police Headquarters via telephone number 04-2221522 and spoke to one "Sergeant Liew", and was told that he was also implicated in a drug case and that his partner, Ong Kai Fei, had been arrested.

He said the victim who was told that the case could be settled if he paid some money. He then made four transactions, transfering money amounting to RM50,400 into three bank accounts given by "Sergeant Liew" between Dec 7 and Dec 17.

“The victim was then told not to tell anyone about the transactions,” Mustafa said, adding that the victim only realised he had been cheated when he related the incident to his employer, who knew it was a scam having received a call from the same number previously.

“The victim lodged a police report on Friday (Dec 21),” he said. 

The Macau scam often starts with a phone call from someone pretending to be an officer from a bank, government agency or debt collector.

The scammer will then claim that the potential victim owes money or has an unpaid fine, often with a very short window of less than an hour to settle the payment, or else they will face “dire consequences”.

These unsuspecting victims will then be asked to make payments to get them off the hook. – Bernama