‘Victim actually a recruiting agent’
KUCHING: Police have established that one of the 47 victims stranded in Cambodia after they were lured to work there is an agent who had recruited others.
A source told the New Straits Times that police investigations showed that the man was among four people detained and remanded in connection with the scam.
“He was detained last week and released on Monday.
“He was initially believed to be among the 47 Malaysian victims lured to work in Cambodia.
“However, police investigations showed that he was a suspect involved in recruiting and bringing the others to Cambodia,” said the source.
Police have established that an international syndicate was behind the job scam that lured the Malaysians to work in Cambodia with promises of securing highlypaid jobs.
The syndicate’s modus operandi was to appoint locals as their agents who then targeted youths and school leavers desperately looking for employment opportunities.
Police have since intensified efforts to identify the local agents who were tasked to look for victims here through social media, such as Facebook and WeChat.
They have also roped in Interpol to help identify the syndicate’s mastermind.
Sarawak Commercial Crime Investigation Department Chief Superintendent Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah said police did not rule out the possibility that the mastermind behind the job scam could be linked to an international syndicate.
“It is possible because statements given by victims showed that they were taken to the private homes by the locals upon arriving in Cambodia.
“They were told to surrender their passports and mobile phones to a man, believed to be from China,” he added.
To date police have arrested four suspects, including a couple, in connection with the job scam.
The victims, including 40 Sarawakians, had been kept in two private homes and worked as scammers by promoting illegal online gambling and conducting phone scams.
They were arrested on Dec 11 by the local police in Cambodia but were subsequently released after several rounds of discussions between the Malaysian government and Cambodian authorities.
Police have identified two more suspects, aged 26 and 31, and hope to pick them up soon to facilitate investigations.