Contractor duped into paying for parcels of ‘Saddam Hussein’s cash’

KUCHING: A contractor lost RM4,300 in a parcel scam after believing that he had been sent packages containing money belonging to former Iraq president Saddam Hussein.

Sarawak Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) chief Supt Mustafa Kamal Gani Abdullah said the 43-year-old man fell for the scam perpetrated by a ‘Sandra Robinson' whom he befriended on Facebook on Oct 10.

“The ‘woman' sent the contractor a message saying she possessed a sum of USD1.5 million obtained from the deposit box of Saddam Hussein during his capture.

“She said she wanted to give him a portion of the money as a gesture of her love for him,” he said in a statement yesterday.

According to Mustafa Kamal, the contactor received a message on Oct 14 from ‘Sandra' saying she had paid USD2,000 to have two parcels sent to him, and that he should expect a call within a day from an agent to collect the items.

“He received the said call the following day and was asked to transfer a sum of RM4,300 to a bank account to pay for the processing fees. He did as instructed and only realised he had been conned when the packages never arrived,” he added.

Meanwhile, the Sarawak CCID head also disclosed that a 29-yearold housewife here lost RM18,750 last Friday in a Macau Scam, while two other individuals from Sibu and Miri avoided falling for similar scams.

He said the woman received a call from a ‘Chief Inspector Mikael Mokhtar' telling her she had an outstanding bank loan and was being investigated for money laundering.

“The caller was able to convince the housewife to transfer the money to an account number provided by him, as a way of avoiding her funds being frozen during the course of the so-called investigation.”

On the other two targets, Mustafa Kamal said one was a 36-year-old man from Sibu who received a call from a ‘Jacky Ong' and told that he had a credit card debt of nearly RM9,000.

Despite telling the caller that he had never owned a credit card in his life, the caller insisted he did and warned him that he needed to settle the amount quickly of face being blacklisted by Bank Negara Malaysia.

“The man kept his wits about him and hung up on the caller, who did not contact him again after that.”

The other target was a 67year-old retiree from Miri, who received a call from a woman who identified herself as 'Kalsom Seman' and told he had a bank debt of RM7,832.

The caller, however, told the retiree that he could negotiate the amount of the debt by calling a man named 'Nizam'.

He then proceeded to contact 'Nizam' and was told to transfer a sum of RM960 to a bank account by 3pm the same day to ‘settle' his supposed debt.

The retiree grew suspicious upon hearing the ‘settlement' terms of his alleged debt and immediately ended the call, thus avoiding falling victim to the scammers,” said Mustafa Kamal, adding all three cases are being investigated by police.