Women lose over RM2.2mil to investment frauds

JOHOR BARU: Two sexagenarians lost RM2.247mil to online investment frauds.

Johor deputy police chief DCP M Kumar said that reports were received from the women - a 63-year-old housewife and a 66-year-old private company manager - both Malaysians, on Tuesday (Dec 19) and Thursday (Dec 21).

He said that the housewife suffered a loss of more than RM1.09mil after participating in a stock investment advertised on social media with the promise of lucrative returns in a short period.

"She was promised handsome profits, between eight and 44% of the investment capital and can monitor the profits through an application.

"The victim started investing with a small amount and received the profit as promised, but after that, the victim no longer received any profit after investing up to RM1.09mil and she failed to contact the suspect. The application could no longer be accessed by the victim,” he said in a statement on Friday (Dec 22).

He said the manager of a private company lost RM1.195mil as a result of being deceived by an individual who duped her into investing by promising large and easy profits.

"She was also instructed to download an application to monitor the investment, but after investing such a large amount, the victim only received a small amount of profit.

"After that, the suspect also failed to be contacted and the application could no longer be accessed by the victim,” he said.

He said both cases were investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code. He also advised the public to be vigilant especially when dealing with financial transactions.

The public is also urged to follow the Commercial Crime Investigation Department's Facebook and TikTok accounts to obtain information related to commercial crime modus operandi such as investment fraud.

He also urged the public to use the online service, Semak Mule, before making any payment and downloading the Whoscall application to reduce the risk of becoming a victim of fraud.

"For victims, contact the National Scam Response Centre at 997 immediately, as an initial action to block the outflow of money from the suspect's account,” he said. – Bernama