QuickCheck: Was a 'money-changing' scam detected in Sarawak?

WITH more and more people wising up to the tricks used by scammers, new techniques and tricks have to be developed to fool the public and part them from their money.

It was claimed recently that a new tactic was detected in Sarawak, one where the scammers claimed that their victim was involved in a fake offence linked to “money-changing”.

Is there any truth to this?

VERDICT:

TRUE

This was confirmed by Sarawak police commissioner Comm Datuk Mancha Ata, who said that a female hairstylist in Sibu in her 60s had been contacted on Oct 17 by a person posing as an “Insp Koo” of the Perak police contingent headquarters.

He added that the person had told the victim that their bank account had been used by third parties to change illegal money and that she needed to open a new one which would be “monitored by Bank Negara” and transfer all her money into it.

“The victim then opened a new account with a financial institution and transferred RM900,000 into it through four transactions as directed by the suspect,” said Comm Mancha.

He said the woman only realised that she had been the victim of scammers when she told her child about it.

“Checks revealed that the money in the account had been transferred to seven third-party accounts through 55 transactions from the middle of October to early November,” he added.

On scams like these, Comm Mancha said that the public He said that the public should be careful of such scams and not panic or feel intimidated if they are contacted by people they do not know.

He added that people should not reveal their personal or banking information to strangers and that they should not panic if they are accused of any offence that they haven't committed.