KUALA LUMPUR: An alleged bogus investment firm has left hundreds broke, and victims are now urging prompt actions to be taken.
The Malaysian International Humanitarian Organisation (MHO) said the group came to the Sentul police station to represent dozens of scam victims in lodging police reports against the company.
Its secretary-general Datuk Hishamuddin Hashim said that the scammers offered Islamic Redeemable Shares and used religion to convince victims that they were legitimate.
"They also used the names of well-known heads of industries to convince victims that they were a legal business. Most of the victims have used their retirement funds and some had to refinance their houses and borrow money from family members.
"We have come here today to lodge reports and more than 250 have been made so far against this company," he said.
He added that the company had not been audited as well.
In the span of the last two weeks, Hishamuddin said that a total of 330 victims have lodged complaints to the MHO.
"Losses that were reported to us is around RM100mil. And this is just from the complaints that we have received.
"We don't know the numbers from those that have not come to us for help," he said.
Victims said that at first the firm would pay the promised dividends at first but stopped around May 2022.
They added that the company issued a memo to all investors that they would perform a buyback of their "investments" but they had not received their capital or dividends since.
Meetings to schedule a face to face with the heads of the company have been fruitless, and what little contact that they had over the phone were just more promises that things will be settled, victims added.
Retired civil servant Harun Mohd Yunos said that he and his wife lost around RM500,000 in total.
"At first I received dividends for around four months, from January to April last year. After Raya, I wanted to spend some money for my grandkids but there was no news. We kept getting the same excuses from the heads.
"They told us they wanted to go to Kuwait to find new investors but it's been 10 months to almost a year now. I am relying on my pension to survive and it's just sad for me because they said this investment is for the Malays," he said before he started tearing up.
