KUALA TERENGGANU, Dec 15 — The hope of a construction material supplier to buy a piece of land was dashed after he claimed to have been cheated by a money-lending syndicate or loan sharks.

Terengganu police chief Datuk Aidi Ismail said the victim, in his 50s, from Setiu had applied for five loans amounting to RM35,000 for the purpose but never received the full amount.

“The group (syndicate) puts the burden on the borrowers by forcing their victims to apply for three small loans worth RM1,000 each before taking bigger loans,” he told Bernama here.

Aidi said in the first two loans, the borrowers only received RM600 while the remaining RM1,400 was for ‘processing fee’ to get a bigger amount.

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“As for the third loan, the borrowers were paid RM700 and the remaining RM300, which served as the processing fee, was then transferred into the loan shark’s personal account instead of the money-lending company.

“However, after the small loans were made, the borrowers still had not received the full amount of loan as promised,” he said.

Aidi also said the victims were required to repay in full despite getting less than the loan amount.

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Meanwhile, he said police detained three members of the syndicate here last Tuesday and were closing in on six other suspects.

Those detained were being remanded until Sunday to facilitate investigations under Section 5(2) of the Moneylenders Act 1951, he added. — Bernama