Love scam unfolds after woman sought help from DAP Bandar Kuching
A woman turned to the Democratic Action Party (DAP) Bandar Kuching Parliamentary Service Centre yesterday to seek help in ‘releasing her boyfriend’ from detention at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) – only to find out later that it was a scam.
She approached Bandar Kuching MP Dr Kelvin Yii’s special assistant George Lam and told him about her predicament.
“She was in a state of panic. She wanted her ‘boyfriend’ to be released by the Customs so that he could continue his journey to Kuching to meet up with her.
“She told me that the ‘Customs officer’ issued a bail amounting to
RM6,000 because the ‘boyfriend’ was bringing along excessive amount of cash from US to Malaysia,” said Lam yesterday.
Lam said he sensed something was amiss as the woman continued with her story, prompting him to ask her about the boyfriend’s travelling details, including an image of the flight ticket.
He could see that the picture was obviously doctored, since there was never a direct flight between US and Malaysia.
“The ‘boyfriend’ claimed to have travelled from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur on board MH0752 (Malaysia Airlines).
“Actually, MH0752 is a Kuala Lumpur-Hanoi flight, not the one indicated in the photo. This is clearly a scam,” he added.
Lam also found out that the woman had been in ‘a relationship with the boyfriend’ since last October, after getting to know each other via Facebook and continuing their interactions via WhatsApp.
“Not only did the detention by the Customs Department sound unusual, but the woman also said she had conducted five online transactions amounting to RM4,180 to various bank accounts, at different times.
“Her ‘boyfriend’ claimed that he had transferred gift money to her account, but it was frozen by ‘International Police’. He (boyfriend) told her the purpose of transferring money to him was to ‘unfreeze’ the money meant to be credited into her account.
“I reiterate – this is clearly a scam. At first, she found it very hard to accept the truth, but I convinced her to lodge a police report,” he said.
Lam said they lodged a report at the Sekama police station at 11am, followed by the next procedure to initiate the investigation at the Sungai Maong police station at 12.30pm.