7 Taiwanese held in Malaysia for SMS scams
Wed, Sep 05, 2007
The Straits Times
PENANG - SEVEN Taiwanese, including a woman, have been remanded for
three days in connection with a series of phone text scams in
Georgetown recently.
The seven, who are in their 20s and 30s, were picked up from
various states about two weeks ago and brought before a magistrate
yesterday.
Georgetown's deputy police chief, Superintendent Gan Kong Meng,
said they were being investigated in connection with a RM31,800
(S$13,800) SMS scam reported in May.
He said police also believed the seven could be responsible for
numerous other cases involving SMSes and phone calls that had been
reported since January.
'We are confident of solving most of these cases with their
arrests,' the deputy chief said.
On June 25, a housewife in Penang's Air Itam area reportedly lost
her life savings after being duped into depositing RM200,000 into a
bank account by a man claiming to be a magistrate.
At least five youths whose bank accounts were used in that scam
were recently arrested in Kuala Lumpur and Ipoh. They were later
released on police bail.
Investigations showed the youths were paid between RM200 and RM300
a month for allowing their bank accounts to be used to accept the
deposits from the victims.
In one variation of the scam, the victims were told they had won a
lucky draw organised by the Hong Kong Jockey Club.
Forty people were also detained recently over a lucky draw scam via
SMS. The syndicate responsible, operating since last year, was said
to be based in Taiwan and Hong Kong. Malaysians had lost RM35
million in the past seven months to this syndicate.
Yesterday, a building contractor who lost RM1.7 million after being
convinced he had won as much as RM24 million from a supposed
lottery company, spoke about his experience at a press
conference.
The contractor, who wished to be known only as Chung, flew to Hong
Kong twice to meet the president and general manager of the lottery
company.
During a week's stay in Hong Kong in July, he was pampered with
meals and special treats to convince him to invest more money
before claiming his winnings.
'At one point, they told me I had won RM24 million through the
lottery but I never received it,' he said.
In desperation, he sought help from the Public Services and
Complaints Department of the Malaysian Chinese Association.
Said the department's head, Datuk Michael Chong: 'Although I have
conducted many (press) conferences on all sorts of scams, members
of the public still keep falling into the same trap.'
THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK
