Wednesday June 3, 2009
Teacher loses RM138,000 in well-organised scam after helping widow
By ANDREW SAGAYAM
KUALA LUMPUR: A teacher lost about RM138,000 to a Black Money scam syndicate after she helped a widow “save” her money.
Noraini Ahmad, (pic) 39, from Ipoh said she was approached by a woman who identified herself as Mrs M. Sulak on Jan 18, asking her for help over US$22mil (RM81mil) in cash left behind by her late husband in his will.
She said that Sulak, supposedly from England, claimed that she was all alone and needed someone to “take care” of the money.
“I was genuinely concerned for her and gave her my particulars and photograph which she later forwarded to her lawyers.
“I did not know then that I had allowed myself to be conned in the scam,” said Noraini when met at the Commercial Crime Investigations Department (CCID) office in Bukit Perdana.
She said she was later contacted by a man claiming to be Sulak’s lawyer who told her that she was to inherit US$22mil left behind by Sulak, who had died of cancer.
The man, who called himself Mr Steven Graham from a law firm in London, contacted her several times.
“He said that to sort out some paperwork, I had to bank in RM35,500 to a CIMB bank account under Steven Graham’s name which I did in several payments,” she said.
Noraini met up with two men, purportedly from London on March 14, one of whom claimed to be an officer from Abbey National Bank and the other a “diplomat” from the United Nations Security Unit in London who was checking on the “authenticity” of transfer.
They told her that the cash was kept in a security vault in Ampang and to have it released, Noraini had to pay another RM27,500.
“They also told me that the notes were special and needed to be washed with a special liquid cleaner,” she said.
“Later the same day, they demonstrated to me by “washing” several US currency notes and gave me US$300 (RM1,050). They said to change the notes at any moneychanger,” she added.
Noraini said she was convinced that the deal was genuine after she changed the notes. So, when the men asked her for another RM75,000, she paid them.
Later, they told Noraini that due to some complications at the vault, the money had been ‘frozen’ and that they had to buy new liquid from Singapore.
“They also asked me to pay another RM75,000 to buy the liquid as there was something wrong with the previous purchase,” she said.
“It was then that it struck me that I had been tricked.
“It was a well-organised scam in which they had baited me from the very beginning,” Noraini said.
She urged Malaysians to be careful, saying: “I am a teacher and yet I was tricked out my life savings.
“They can be very convincing but from this experience, I have learnt that we cannot let ourselves be fooled.
“We must always check with the authorities for verification,” she added.
The Star frontpaged a report yesterday that Malaysians had been conned of as much as RM20mil by African tricksters in the past few years in at least 11 internationally-known scams ranging from Black Money to inheritances which promise non-existent wealth.
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