One of the victims, Che Din, 50, lost RM245,000 after engaging their “services”.
He said he was attracted to an advertisement he had seen on Facebook featuring the couple’s company in January 2022.
“I contacted the company, which was said to be in Batu Berendam, and based on the Facebook advertisement, the company claimed to have clients in Johor, Selangor, and even as far as Sabah.
“I called the marketing officer of the company and agreed to use their service to draw up a plan and build a house on my land,” Che Din said at a press conference.
He said that based on the advertisement, which displayed model houses and the progress report of other projects on Facebook, both parties agreed to visit his house site in Muar, Johor.
However, the marketing officer and the couple who are purportedly the chief executive officer and managing director of the company could not be contacted after he paid RM15,000 for the house plan and RM230,000 as progress payment for the first phase of the construction.
“In fact, to date, the original copy of the contract has not been given to me. The company in Batu Berendam and its Facebook account are no longer available but it is believed to be actively seeking more victims,” he said.
Another victim, Ahmad Fuad, 38, was cheated of RM15,000 after using the company’s service to draw his house plan and was even promised that the house plan would be ready within three months.
“However, after making the payment, the company’s marketing officer started making various excuses and finally could not be contacted,” the restaurant operator said.
Fuad added that so far six other individuals were found to have been conned by the couple with an estimated loss of RM1.85 million.
“I managed to track down these six other victims who each suffered a loss of between RM190,000 to RM300,000 and we believe there are many more victims of this syndicate and several police reports have been made.
“We hope that an investigation will be carried out immediately to discourage more people from falling victim to the couple.”