Ah Long harassing family of borrower who absconded

KLANG: Their eldest son borrowed money from loan sharks and disappeared, causing them to be harassed by Ah Long, who have splashed red paint and thrown Molotov cocktails at their house.

Yap Boon Wah, 61, and his wife Lim Yeng, 58, are pleading with the illegal moneylenders to leave them alone.

The couple have even received death threats.

“Our 40-year-old son left home in January and has not come back since. He left his wife and two sons, aged 14 and one, with us and we have been unable to reach him.

“We cannot repay his debts anymore, especially after I have mortgaged the house to help him pay his earlier debts,” Yap said.

At a press conference organised by social activist Peter Tan, Yap, a former contractor, said his family home and his son-in-law’s home in Taman Melawati, Kapar, were splashed with red paint numerous times in January.

He said they also received threatening phone calls on a daily basis asking for payment, or “someone in the family will die”.

“How are we supposed to live like this, with a young child to care for?” he asked, adding that he had left his one-year-old grandson with a family friend as he had no means to provide for two grandchildren at the same time.

Yap’s son-in-law, who only wanted to be known as Khoo, said his worst nightmare happened on Friday when Molotov cocktails were thrown into his porch at midnight, resulting in a fire.

“Luckily, our neighbour woke us up in time. We brought our children out and extinguished the fire.

“I cannot imagine what could have happened otherwise,” said Khoo.

His house gate, main door and car were damaged in the fire.

Khoo said he had no idea of the nature of his brother-in-law’s business, but had lent him RM80,000 months ago to settle his business problems.

“He wanted to borrow RM13,000 from me again in January and I wrote him a cheque.

“However, I cancelled the cheque with the bank after learning from friends that he had borrowed from Ah Long,” he said.

Yap added that the family had lodged several police reports but the loan sharks continued to harass them.

Tan said he would bring up the matter with the police again and urged the loan sharks to see him to work something out.