A single mother and her 17-year-old daughter found an “easy” job a few months ago by calling people and asking them to sign up for a “high-payback investment scheme”, which many housewives have fallen prey to.
The mother and daughter are said to have signed up more than 200 people nationwide, most of whom were housewives who fell into the investment scam and lost more than RM2 million.
The sources said the Johor police had also received reports from some of the victims of the scam.
The sources cited two cases in Johor, one involving a real estate agent in his 30s who lost RM7,200 and a housewife in her 30s who was cheated out of RM8,000. Both were lured by the high returns promised by the syndicate, which also added them to a mobile application WhatsApp group and regularly informed them of new promotions.
The Star reported today that the Bukit Aman Business Investigation Unit and Perak police recently raided a house in Jelapang, arresting nine people, including five women and a mastermind who recruited the “telemarketers”.
The single mother in her 40s and her 17-year-old daughter were also arrested in the operation.
Sources indicated that the modus operandi was to pose as representatives of an American pharmaceutical company and use social media to lure people in by claiming huge profits.
“All the money is then deposited into a company account called BMS Providers Resources. They do this by telling people that they only need to invest RM150 and after more than 100 days, the person will get more than RM1,000.”
Many people started investing their money because of the weekly paybacks given. The source noted that many of the victims were housewives.
Based on the investigation, the victims’ losses ranged between RM150 and RM40,000
“We believe there are still many victims who are unaware that the police smashed this fraud ring and who still expect to receive their weekly payback each week.”
“We seized a range of items including computers and books containing the names of investors involved in the scheme.”
A Bukit Aman police officer confirmed the involvement of nine suspects in the case, who were brought before the Ipoh Probate Court for face-to-face charges today by police invoking Section 420 (Fraud) of the Penal Code.
