RM5.9m FROZEN
PUTRAJAYA: The Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry has frozen 72 bank accounts with about RM5.9 million in the wake of “Ops Coin”, a special joint operation against ecommerce company MonSpace Sdn Bhd.
Fifteen premises in the Klang Valley and one in Ipoh, linked to the company, were raided on Tuesday for allegedly running illegal investment or “money game” schemes.
“The raids resulted in the freezing of 25 of MonSpace bank accounts and 47 individual accounts in nine banks containing a total of RM5.87 million,” the ministry’s enforcement director Datuk Mohd Roslan Mahayudin told a press conference yesterday.
The operation was jointly conducted by the ministry, the Attorney-General’s Chambers, National Revenue Recovery Enforcement Team, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM), CyberSecurity Malaysia, Companies Commission of Malaysia (SSM) and the police.
Apart from business premises and homes, also raided were three premises used as server centres by the MonSpace Group.
“The teams seized computers and company products worth RM980,352 and cash in various denominations – Euros, US dollars, Yuan and Ringgit amounting to RM93,879,” said Mohd Roslan.
“We have also frozen the rights to transfer ownership of 26 vehicles worth RM6.24 million.
“No arrests were made during the raids. The founder of the e-commerce company has been very cooperative and we were promised that cooperation will be given including coming to our office to give the required statements.”
It was learnt that the founder of MonSpace is a “Datuk Seri” and all its staff have been prohibited from travelling abroad until further notice.
The investigations are being conducted under Section 27B of the Malaysian Direct Sales and Anti-Pyramid Scheme Act 1993 and the Anti-Money Laundering, Anti-Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act 2001.
MonSpace, which has been in business for several years, ran into troubled waters when 19 Chinese nationals lodged police reports against the company in May last year alleging they lost hundreds of thousands of ringgit that they invested.
Two weeks later, more than 70 Chinese nationals showed up here making similar allegations.
MonSpace is one of the companies blacklisted in BNM’s Financial Consumer Alert list, which consists of companies and websites that are neither authorised nor approved to conduct business under the relevant laws and regulations administered by BNM. The latest list consists of 291 companies.