A mother of six from Bukit Baru, Melaka, has been left penniless after falling victim to a love scam and being fleeced of almost RM250,000.
Melaka Commercial Crime chief Supt E Sundra Rajan said the single mother, a human resources executive, found herself caught in a nightmare after trusting her online lover who promised to marry her.
“The 40-year-old woman desperately wanted to get married and befriended the conman, who claimed to be a 50-year-old businessman currently based overseas,” he said on Friday (March 18).
Supt Sundra Rajan said the victim, out of love, transferred money to the alleged fraudster’s foreign bank account in December when he asked.
“The man asked the victim to first transfer RM10,900 and later RM2,500 the same month,” he said.
Supt Sundra Rajan said the man then gave the information necessary for her to transfer US$42,000 from his account to another foreign bank account, just to convince her that he was wealthy.
“However, the attempted transactions with the man’s account were not successful,” he said.
The woman then obliged when the suspect asked her to transfer RM10,000 of her money to his “mother’s” account in February.
He said the suspect made his final score after convincing the victim that he needed RM225,900 to buy a house at Taman Setia Alam in Shah Alam.
“The victim transferred all her savings to the man’s account in eight transactions last week,” he said.
According to Supt Sundra Rajan, the victim realised she had been cheated after losing contact with the suspect and lodged a police report on Thursday (March 17) at the Bukit Baru police station.
“We are now probing the case under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating,” he added. – The Star