A 44-year-old woman lost nearly her entire life savings of RM2.7 million to an “American pilot” she met on a social networking site.
City Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) acting chief Superintendent Mohd Mahidisham Ishak said the victim had befriended a man who claimed to be an American and working as a pilot on the Tinder application last November.
“Over the next five months, the couple grew closer and on numerous occasions, the suspect had asked the victim to make money transactions to companies for flying courses and she duly obliged.
“Even after she ran out of money, she still went out of her way to borrow from friends and family. Came the time when she could no longer ‘help’ the suspect, he suddenly pulled a disappearing act,” he said.
Mahidisham cautioned the public to be wary of people who they meet through the internet.
He said statistics revealed that last year his department investigated 72 love scam cases compared to only 42 cases in 2019
“Most of these cases involved women aged between 30 and 60 and many (victims) are highly educated and successful in their careers,” he said.
He warned the public not to be fooled easily and to check the background of any new friends before providing any financial favours, especially if they had never met them.
Mahidisham urged those with information or leads about such scams or scammers to contact the KL police hotline at 03-2115 9999 or the nearest police station. – NST