MIRI – A teacher in a private school in Sibu has lost RM89,000 after being sweet-talked by a woman online into investing in a gold-buying scheme.
Sarawak police chief commissioner Datuk Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri said the teacher lodged a report on July 21 in Sibu.
He said the scammer and victim “got to know each other” for a few days online through an app before she invited him to invest in gold.
“She promised him that he will get at least 18% profits from the total amount he invested.
“She persuaded him to download another app that links to the gold investment scheme.
“The teacher was subsequently coaxed into paying RM89,000 to 11 different bank accounts via online transactions.
“He only realized he had been conned after the woman cut off communications with him, and has not received any monetary returns until now,” Azman said in a statement.
The teacher is among the latest scam victims in Sarawak, which has seen 93 reports involving RM8.2 million lost since the beginning of the year, compared to 74 cases last year and RM5.4 million in losses.
The number of scams and victims is on the rise in the state, and so is the number of arrests, which is currently 25 this year so far, compared to 15 for all of last year.
Online investment scams on Facebook continue to find new victims, including a 25-year-old storekeeper, also in Sibu, who was cheated of RM101,200, Azman added.
The storekeeper’s police report on July 20 said he called a WhatsApp number that was published in a Facebook ad and was told to download a certain app from the Google Play Store to hook up with the investment site.
Through June, he made 11 online bank payments to several different bank accounts and lodged a report after not getting any returns.
A similar investment scam saw a 66-year-old property company director in Kuching lodge a police report on May 31 that she lost RM1.5 million after investing in a TikTok business.
Azman said the victim, a woman, got emotionally attracted to a man she had been chatting with on Facebook and made dozens of online payments to him upon his instructions. – The Vibes, July 23, 2023
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