Tuesday April 30, 2013
Nigerians nabbed over scam
By M. KUMAR
[email protected]
KUALA LUMPUR: An African parcel scam syndicate, which “sweet talked” three women in China out of about RM11.2mil by posing as Caucasians, was smashed by the police here with the arrest of 14 Nigerian men.
Although the syndicate was based in Malaysia, it had been targeting women in China, persuading them via social media and online messaging to part with their money.
The first two women were conned of US$1.5mil (RM4.5mil) each while the third victim was swindled of US$700,000 (RM2.1mil).
Federal Commercial Crimes Investigation Department (CCID) director Comm Datuk Syed Ismail Syed Azizan said it had received information about the syndicate in December last year from their Chinese counterparts.
“They contacted us after the women lodged police reports,” he said at Bukit Aman yesterday.
Following the information, a special team from the CCID managed to track down the syndicate before simultaneously raiding four premises in Taman Mutiara Indah, Puchong, and arresting the men on Thursday.
All the men, aged between 25 and 33, had entered the country on student visas in 2007 and were enrolled in local private colleges, said Comm Syed Ismail.
“In the scam, known also as the romance scam, the syndicate engaged wealthy women online via Yahoo Messenger and other social media.
“They would charm and seduce the women before claiming to send them expensive gifts like jewellery and diamonds,” he said, adding that the members would use the alias “Goodman” online.
“The victim would get a call that the ‘parcel’ had been held up for some reason and that she would need to pay some fees to Customs. In this case, the women were asked to deposit money in three separate bank accounts in stages before they realised that they had been scammed,” he said.
During the raid, police also seized seven laptops, three desktop computers, 27 mobile phones and various other electronic devices.
“We are also working to trace all the syndicate’s bank accounts and recover some of the money,” Comm Syed Ismail said, adding that they were also investigating how long the syndicate had been active.
All those detained have been remanded until Wednesday.
