ID :
57478
Sun, 04/26/2009 - 05:34
Auther :
Shortlink :
https://oananews.org//node/57478
The shortlink copeid
"PARCEL TRICK" SYNDICATE CHEATS M'SIANS OF US$1.02 MILLION
KUALA LUMPUR, April 24 (Bernama) -- At least 150 Malaysians have lost RM3.7 million (US$1.02 million) over the last two years to the so-called "parcel trick" syndicate comprising 29 Africans and three local women who were arrested Thursday in Kepong, police said Friday.
Commercial Crime Investigation Department Deputy Director I Noryah Md
Anvar said the syndicate, which operated from four units of the Metro Kepong
apartments, had mainly targeted women who chatted on the Internet.
After chatting with them for months, they would convince them they wanted to
get married to them and wanted to present them with a parcel of luxury items,
including jewellery, handicraft, camera, laptop and American dollars, all
supposedly valued at hundreds of thousands of ringgit, she told reporters.
"They will then contact their victims to say that the parcel had arrived
from abroad but was held up at the Customs and several payments had to be
settled before it could be claimed," she said.
Noryah said the unsuspecting victims would fall for the trick and, as
required of them, deposit sums of cash into bank accounts of local people
recruited by the syndicate.
Even after the victims had deposited the money into the accounts, the
syndicate would claim that the cash was insufficient and before they knew it the
victims would have parted with money to the tune of RM100,000 or more, she said.
"The victims will realise they have been cheated when there is no such
parcel, and the suspects will have disappeared," she said.
Noryah said the syndicate had also advertised so-called high-paying jobs in
Malaysia on Internet chat sites, such as marketing executive, telecommunications
engineer and hotel manager when there were no such vacancies available.
Most of the foreigners abroad who responded to the advertisements were asked
to pay RM10,000 as fees for processing, permit, visa and so on, and they would
lose the money once they paid up, she said, adding that the job scam, which was
started this year, had resulted in 30 reported cases of cheating so far.
She said the police detained the suspects, aged between 20 and 40 years,
among them two African women, at about 3pm Thursday, and seized 21 laptops,
scanners, fax machines, handphones, thumb drives and pornographic DVDs.
Nineteen of the Africans were found to have entered the country without
valid entry documents, she added.
Commercial Crime Investigation Department Deputy Director I Noryah Md
Anvar said the syndicate, which operated from four units of the Metro Kepong
apartments, had mainly targeted women who chatted on the Internet.
After chatting with them for months, they would convince them they wanted to
get married to them and wanted to present them with a parcel of luxury items,
including jewellery, handicraft, camera, laptop and American dollars, all
supposedly valued at hundreds of thousands of ringgit, she told reporters.
"They will then contact their victims to say that the parcel had arrived
from abroad but was held up at the Customs and several payments had to be
settled before it could be claimed," she said.
Noryah said the unsuspecting victims would fall for the trick and, as
required of them, deposit sums of cash into bank accounts of local people
recruited by the syndicate.
Even after the victims had deposited the money into the accounts, the
syndicate would claim that the cash was insufficient and before they knew it the
victims would have parted with money to the tune of RM100,000 or more, she said.
"The victims will realise they have been cheated when there is no such
parcel, and the suspects will have disappeared," she said.
Noryah said the syndicate had also advertised so-called high-paying jobs in
Malaysia on Internet chat sites, such as marketing executive, telecommunications
engineer and hotel manager when there were no such vacancies available.
Most of the foreigners abroad who responded to the advertisements were asked
to pay RM10,000 as fees for processing, permit, visa and so on, and they would
lose the money once they paid up, she said, adding that the job scam, which was
started this year, had resulted in 30 reported cases of cheating so far.
She said the police detained the suspects, aged between 20 and 40 years,
among them two African women, at about 3pm Thursday, and seized 21 laptops,
scanners, fax machines, handphones, thumb drives and pornographic DVDs.
Nineteen of the Africans were found to have entered the country without
valid entry documents, she added.
