JOHOR BARU: The recent immigration blitz on illegal foreign workers has gotten the attention of scammers, who are contacting employers offering to help release their workers for a hefty fee.
Their activities were uncovered when a Singaporean businessman lost almost RM700,000 while attempting to release about 130 foreign workers.
Reportedly, a man, claiming to be a Datuk Seri, assured the businessman that he would be able to free his partners’ workers who had been detained during a recent immigration operation.
It is learnt that the Datuk Seri had demanded almost RM700,000 as his service fee, claiming that he had to “pay off” many immigration officers to secure a release.
A security official said the businessman, who was initially sceptical, was tricked into believing that the Datuk Seri was an influential person who had contacts in the Immigration Department.
“The syndicate even provided the bank account of a Datuk to bank in the deposit to convince the victim that it was a genuine deal,” the official said.
However the Singaporean suspected something was amiss when the Datuk Seri could not be contacted after the exchange of money.
He then lodged a police report.
A senior police officer confirmed the case and said investigations were underway.
In an unrelated case, a 45-year-old doctor lost RM2.6mil of his savings after being duped in an online investment scheme promising high returns.
Johor police chief Comm Datuk Ab Rahaman Arsad said the victim was first attracted to an advertisement promoting the investment scheme on a social media platform on May 25.
He said the suspect promised the victim that the overseas-based investment scheme would give returns of between 5% and 15%.
“The victim also downloaded the application on his mobile phone to monitor the transactions of the investment,” he said.
The victim made a total of 56 transactions to eight accounts of different banks from May 25 to Aug 8, amounting to RM2.6mil.
“The victim only realised he was cheated after failing to withdraw the money using the monitoring application,” he said.
Comm Ab Rahaman reminded the public to be alert and careful, especially in matters involving financial transactions when dealing with unknown persons.
The public can also go to Semak Mule, CCID Scam Response Centre at 03-2610 1599 or go to Facebook@jsjkpdrm and @cybercrimealertrmp.
Scam victims are advised to call the National Scam Response Centre at 997 to report their case.
