TELUK INTAN: A clerk lost over RM400,000 after falling victim to scammers posing as representatives of a delivery company and the police in July.
Hilir Perak district police chief Assistant Commissioner Ahmad Adnan Basri said that the police received a complaint from the 45-year-old female victim yesterday.
Initial investigations revealed that the victim received a phone call from a man claiming to be from an e-commerce platform at 11.13am on July 24.
The caller alleged that she was operating a beauty product business on the platform without a valid licence.
"The victim denied this accusation, but the man then connected her to another individual who introduced himself as 'Sergeant Badrul' to file an online police report. 'Sergeant Badrul' informed her that she was involved in a money laundering case and that there was a warrant for her arrest.
"In a state of panic and believing the scam, the victim transferred her entire savings, along with her mother's savings, totaling RM445,050, to two bank accounts between July 24 and Aug 7," he said in a statement today.
Ahmad Adnan said that the suspect convinced the victim to hand over the funds supposedly for the investigation and to clear her name, promising that the money would be returned after the investigation concluded.
"The victim only realised she had been scammed nearly two months later when her money was not returned and she was unable to contact 'Sergeant Badrul'," he said.