Fraudulent four nabbed

Criminals cheated villagers out of RM1mil with bogus land deals

JOHOR BARU: They are criminals who dress smartly and travel around villages looking for senior citizens to dupe in bogus land deals.

To date, the four men, who are in their 40s and 60s, have cheated eight victims and made off with almost RM1mil.

However their activities came to an end when they were arrested in a series of raids around the state several days ago.

A Bukit Aman official said that the four, who were released from prison several yeas ago for similar cheating cases involving land in the Klang Valley moved their operations to rural towns to avoid being detected.

“In the evenings, two of the gang member will drive around villages looking for senior citizens.

“Once the victims are identified, they will approach them and spin a tale that they have oil palm land for sale in the Klang Valley for a fraction of the price, claiming that the seller was in need of fast cash.

“They even impersonate as a Datuk and produce land documents and legal letters to convince their victims,” the official said, adding that in Johor alone there were six such cases.

It is learnt that the once the victim agrees, the suspects would asked for deposits and even drive the victim to the bank to make withdrawals.

“The victims, mostly retirees, have lost more than RM100,000 each,” the official said, adding that the victims only realised that they have been duped when they were unable to contact the suspects.

The official said that police investigations showed that the four suspects had been carrying out such scams previously and have been jailed.

“They thought they could continue their scams in the rural areas but a special team from the Pontian commercial crimes investigations department managed to track down the suspects,” the official said, adding that the police have also confiscated some land documents from the suspects.

Pontian OCPD Supt Mohammad Shofee Tayib when contacted confirmed the suspects had been detained and investigations were underway under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.

He urged those with information to contact the police hotline at 07-221 2999.

Meanwhile in another scam, a housewife in her 40s, lost RM400,000 in a phone scam.

It is learnt that the victim received a call from a man claiming to be from the postal services and saying that they had stopped a parcel addressed to her as they found some “suspicious items”.

The official said the call was later transferred to a police man from Perak who claimed that the victim was involved in money laundering and that all her accounts would be frozen and she also faced the possibility of being arrested.

The official said that the suspect then advised the woman to move her money to a “safe account” until the investigations were completed.

It is learnt that the woman panicked and transferred all the money to the accounts provided.

However, she realised something amiss and decided to check with the bank but all the accounts had already been emptied.

She then lodged a report.