JOHOR BARU: From a quiet bungalow in an upmarket neighbourhood here, “official” video calls were made to faraway Canada by supposed officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The scammers wore the uniform of Canada’s national police force to convince their targets to part with their money.
The syndicate, which had been operating for a few months, raked in huge amounts of money by intimidating and cheating Canadians out of their life savings.
Their activities came to an abrupt halt following a raid at the posh home in Iskandar Puteri here several days ago, said a senior Johor police official.
It led to the arrests of 11 people – a Malaysian who is believed to be the supervisor, four Africans, three Taiwanese and three Filipinos.
“We seized fake Royal Canadian Mounted Police badges and uniforms along with fake police identification cards,” the official said, adding that police also confiscated more than a dozen mobile phones, laptops and other items.
The official said initial investigations indicated that all the foreign suspects, who did not have passports, had been offered jobs in Malaysia with monthly salaries of about RM2,000 to RM3,500 each.
They would also receive hefty commissions for money collected from their victims.
“All the foreigners were recruited via social media,” the official said, adding that they were promised jobs as customer service representatives.
The official said police had also crippled another syndicate operating in Iskandar Puteri and arrested three Chinese nationals who scammed Singaporeans in fake cryptocurrency investment scams.
The official said that these syndicate members, who were paid up to RM5,000 each month, only targeted Singaporeans.
In another separate scam in Seri Alam, a 60-year-old man lost RM516,341 in a bogus online shoe business, which supposedly offered high returns of between 30% and 60% daily.
Enticed by the promise of substantial profits the man joined the business, according to Seri Alam OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Sohaimi Ishak in a statement.
The victim made payments into 24 different bank accounts between July 3 and Aug 14.
ACP Mohd Sohaimi said the man only realised he was cheated when the profits did not come as promised.
