MIRI: Out of fear of being arrested, a private company clerk was willing to hand over her savings of about RM250,000 before realising that she was duped by a phone scam.
Sarawak Police Commissioner Datuk Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri said the woman, aged in her 40s, received a phone call from the number 019-3613192 in July.
The individual introduced himself as Pang Hui Lee, an agent from courier company J&T in Perak.
The agent said the woman made a package delivery, containing five pieces of MyKad, five bank cards, and five passports to a recipient named Nor Azmi Nazri in Terengganu.
Explaining further, Mohd Azman said the victim however denied the claims before the number was connected to the number +87052451072 for the victim to make a police report and had spoken to one Sergeant Lai from the Perak police headquarters.
Following that, the purported sergeant had told the victim she was involved with a human trafficking syndicate in Vietnam, orchestrated by two "Datuks".
"The victim, panicked by the allegations, then asked the sergeant to help solve the case, but the suspect told her that she must keep the matter secret, and also told her to report back every three hours through WhatsApp," he said in a statement today.
Mohd Azman said the suspect then introduced a "Datuk Wong" from Bukit Aman who could help solve the case. The victim then contacted this individual who told her an arrest warrant had been issued on her and that she would be charged in court at any time.
He added that the victim was then asked to surrender all her bank account details to be checked by Bank Negara Malaysia as the police had found that she was also involved in money laundering.
"Due to fear, the victim told the suspect that she had four bank accounts under her name before transferring the money to several accounts to be checked by Bank Negara.
"The victim made a total of nine transactions from her bank accounts amounting to about RM250,000 to eight different bank accounts between end July and early August."
Mohd Azman said the victim only realised she had been scammed after calls to Sergeant Lai were blocked.
The victim told her sister about the incident before lodging a police report on Aug 10.
