GEORGE TOWN, Jan 25 — A newly formed foreign investment syndicate in the seaside town of Batu Ferringhi has been dismantled by local police who suspected it of being a scam.
Penang police chief Datuk Sahabudin Abd Manan said 21 people were arrested during a raid on two rented houses there last Saturday, with 453 handphones and 19 laptops, one iPad, five computer cables, two cars and two sets of keys confiscated.
“We believe they are starting up operations, setting up the websites and getting contacts of potential victims in China,” he said in a press conference today.
Of the 21 arrested, 13 are Malaysian and the remaining eight are from China.
Sahabudin said police were led to the two houses after stopping two men, one a Malaysian and another a Chinese, during a routine roadblock along Jalan Batu Ferringhi. He added that they had behaved suspiciously.
Initial investigations revealed that the syndicate were renting the two houses in Batu Ferringhi for about two months and each of the suspects were paid a monthly salary of between RM2,000 and RM4,000 to conduct the online scam activity.
Sahabudin said the syndicate’s modus operandi seems to be to offer online investment schemes that do not exist to investors from China, with transactions made through mobile app WeChat.
“We believe they set up the operations in Malaysia to scam victims in China to avoid being caught by the Chinese government,” he said, adding that investigations are ongoing whether Malaysians were also being targeted.
He suspects there may be similar operations being run in other states.
