Five held for turning fake job victims into scammers

JOHOR BAHRU: Johor police have arrested five individuals after they were believed to have cheated their victims by offering them lucrative job opportunities but turning them into scammers.

State police chief Datuk Kamarul Zaman Mamat said the victims were allegedly given job opportunities and gathered somewhere before being handed over to a syndicate to be used as scammers to contact the public.

"Investigations are still underway to track down the mastermind and other syndicate members," he told reporters after attending the 'Bual Bicara' with the Johor police chief and Community Crime Prevention programmes here today.

He said the arrests were made this week and asked people to be careful if they received suspicious job offers.

Meanwhile, Kamarul Zaman said Johor recorded 1,377 commercial crime cases for the period from January to mid-May this year, involving losses of more than RM158 million.

He said it was an increase of 5.1 per cent compared with 1,310 cases reported for the same period last year, involving a loss of RM68 million.

He added that fraudulent crimes such as online shopping, Macau Scam, job offers and non-existent investments recorded the highest number of cases with 1,242 cases.

"Most scammers in Johor are similar to the rest of our country, all involve techniques using social media elements that should be avoided by the community," he said.

-- BERNAMA