North Seberang Perai district police chief Noorzainy Mohd Noor said this followed a complaint lodged by a man that his younger brother had been held by Ah Long on Nov 6.

“The complainant reported that his brother was held by the five suspects at a house for owing money to Ah Long.

“Based on the information obtained, police raided a house in Sungai Petani on Nov 7 at 4.30pm and arrested all the suspects and rescued the victim,” he told a press conference here today.

He said the suspects admitted to locking and beating the victim for violating the conditions of “renting” an automatic teller machine (ATM) card as part of the loan agreement.

‘’We found that the victim had made a new ATM card and taken out a sum of money from a bank account, which was given to him by one of the suspects, without prior approval.

‘’The victim was then called for a discussion with one of the suspects at the house. Instead, he was locked up, assaulted, threatened and forced to settle a RM3,000 loan,’’ he said.

Noorzainy said police also seized some ATM cards, a parang, metal rods, homemade swords and several cellphones.

In another development, Noorzainy said police also crippled a drug distributing activity after arresting four local individuals including a woman, aged 26 to 43, and seized drugs worth RM40,729 during a raid on an apartment along Jalan Harbour here on Nov 6.