JOHOR BARU: A foreign domestic helper who ran away and claimed that she had been abused by her employers turned out to be lying as police found out that she had actually stolen from them.
Johor Baru South OCPD Asst Comm Raub Selamat said the domestic helper told a sob story to a man, claiming that she had been abused by her employers in Taman Pelangi here.
He said four short video clips of the conversation between the domestic helper and the man were posted on social media on Tuesday (July 18), which went viral.
"We would like to quash those claims because at 10.48pm on Tuesday, we received a police report lodged by a 52-year-old woman who said her domestic helper had run away with her valuables and money.
"The woman said her domestic helper ran away from their house in Taman Pelangi at 11.21am on Monday (July 17)," said ACP Raub in a statement on Wednesday (July 19).
He said investigations revealed that the suspect, who was wearing a black T-shirt with yellow stripes, red pants and had a blue shopping bag, climbed over the front gate of the house to get out.
He said that police are searching for the suspect, aged 31, to aid investigations under Section 381 of the Penal Code, which carries a jail term of up to seven years and a fine if convicted.
He added that the stolen valuables and cash amounted to RM10,850.
ACP Raub urged the public who know of the domestic helper's whereabouts to call the Johor Baru South police hotline at 07-218 2323 or the investigating officer Sjn Shahrul Azwan Aziz at 016-944 2795.
In a video posted on Twitter, which had more than 554,000 views at press time, the man in the video says that he saw an Indonesian woman running at the side of the road and crying.
He said the woman, who worked as a domestic helper, had begged him for help and told him how she had been beaten by her employers, whom she also claimed to have let her starve.
