Businessman loses over RM600,000 in investment scam

KUALA TERENGGANU: A businessman claimed to have lost RM688,300 to a nonexistent investment scam.

Terengganu police chief, Datuk Mazli Mazlan, said that the businessman, in his 50s, was interested in investing after seeing an advertisement on Facebook in October, last year.

“The victim has been given investment-related information through a link and the website, and the victim could make investment transactions and view Bursa Malaysia’s graph movement statistics,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Mazli said that the victim had made payments totalling RM688,300, through 19 transactions into 12 different accounts, with the promise of a profit of RM2 million when it reached the maturity date on Jan 24.

He added that, after the promised period, the businessman wanted to withdraw the profit, but was asked to make a withdrawal payment of one per cent of the total profit.

“As the victim did make the payment as requested, he was blocked from accessing the website again,” he said, adding that the businessman then lodged a police report on Wednesday.

Mazli advises the public to always stay vigilant to non-existent investment syndicates, and not to be easily influenced by investment schemes which promise lucrative profits.

He said that, based on statistics from the Terengganu Commercial Crime Investigation Department, a total of 136 reports were received from Jan 28 to yesterday (Feb 3), compared with 115 reports in the previous week, an increase of 21 reports.

He added that a total of 36 investigation papers had been opened, involving a total loss of RM1,095,762.15.