One of the victims, who only wanted to be known as “Madam Wong” from Klang, told a press conference arranged by Santiago that she contacted an agent via Facebook, who promised her she could win big in a 4D number draw.
She was told that a “Datuk” could provide her with the winning numbers if she was willing to pay over RM4,300 to facilitate “prayer” sessions and rituals for it.
Later, the same agent told Wong she had struck it big with a RM960,000 win, but that the money had to be transferred to Thailand first, for a thanksgiving ceremony by a bigger “Datuk”.
Her real problems however began when the agent contacted her again, explaining that the man who was tasked to bring her winnings back into Malaysia had been detained by Thai police. The agent then instructed her to pay RM200,000 as a “processing fee” to secure the man’s release.
Still not suspecting anything amiss, Wong borrowed the money from loan sharks and paid the agent, never to hear from him again. Not only was she left with no prize money in hand, loan sharks are now after her for the money she borrowed from them.
Apart from Madam Wong, another case of online duping involved a group of women, who collectively lost RM2.2 million to a conman selling disposable diapers via Facebook.
One of the women, who only wanted to be known as Ayu, said they were promised good returns for selling the diapers, which they bought at a cheaper price, online.
The first three deals went without a hitch, with the women making some decent money. However, hungry for more easy money, the women invested between RM10,000 and RM50,000 with the agent in exchange for more diapers, which never was delivered to them. The agent also went missing.
A third victim, who wished to remain anonymous, said she was conned of her life savings of RM100,000 after believing the business promises of an “international financial agent”.
Santiago said that besides these cases, conmen had preyed on countless other women as well.
“The sad part is, some of them (victims of scams) invested money without their husbands’ knowledge,” Santiago said, urging police to speed up their investigations into the reports lodged by the three victims.
He said the phone numbers and bank account numbers of the conmen provided by the victims to the police should help the authorities trace the culprits.
Santiago also proposed the government set up a Financial Scams Asset Recovery Centre to help online scam victims recover lost money from agents and to create awareness of e-scams.
This centre, he said, should be headed by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), with assistance from Bank Negara Malaysia, the Domestic Trade, Cooperatives and Consumerism Ministry, the Attorney-General’s Chambers and the police.
Santiago also called for the Cyber Court, recently set up in Jalan Duta, to also have a presence in all states to assist online scam victims in their time of need.