Woman parts with RM210,600 in COVID-19 related scam

Timur Laut district police chief ACP Soffian Santong said the 58-year-old Vietnamese who is a permanent resident and pensioner of a private company said she received a private message on Facebook from her friend telling her about an assistance scheme for COVID-19 victims.

“The victim then browsed the COVID-19 United Nations Grant Fund Relief page on Facebook to gather information regarding the aid and sent a message via the Facebook messenger to apply for the financial aid for herself.

“The programme allegedly offers US$100,000 (RM403,223) in cash to eligible COVID-19 victims and she applied for the aid to buy a house and cover daily expenses as her husband is disabled and does not work,” he said yesterday.

He said the victim then contacted a man through the application who asked her to fill out the application form.

Soffian said the victim sent her personal details such as her identity card and bank account information before the suspect asked her to make the first payment amounting to RM8,000 allegedly for filing and paperwork purposes.

He said the victim was ordered to make several payments allegedly to facilitate the application process and she transferred a total of RM210,600 in stages through 12 transactions to five separate accounts.

“The victim made the transactions from August 18 until Nov 17 last year at the ATM deposit machine and bank counter. She was unable to contact the suspect after completing the transactions,” he added.

He said the woman then lodged a police report on Thursday after realising that she had been duped and initial investigations revealed that the bank accounts used by the suspect were also used in other scam cases in Selangor, Sarawak, Perak and Negeri Sembilan.