KOTA KINABALU: A politician’s son was arrested by the police as a suspect in an investigation for cheating, shortly after he was released on Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission bail on Saturday (July 29).
The suspect is being investigated by the MACC for several fraud cases, and is being probed by police over allegations that he had claimed that he could arrange for permanent resident status for his victims.
According to MACC sources, the 29-year-old is a mastermind in their probe involving a syndicate posing as MACC and Home Ministry senior officers offering people a "fix" for their cases.
Kota Kinabalu OCPD Asst Comm Mohd Zaidi Abdullah said the suspect was nabbed as he had an arrest warrant issued for a cheating case in 2021.
“In May 2021, a complainant was alleged to have dealt with this suspect, who claimed that he could arrange for the application of the MyPR for the complainant’s wife,” he said when contacted on Sunday (July 30).
He said the suspect claimed that he knew people in the Immigration Department who could expedite the application and approval for the MyPR and allegedly asked for payment for it.
ACP Zaidi said the suspect had apparently asked for a total of RM52,600 in nine payments to be banked into nine different bank accounts and assured that the document would be ready soon.
However, the victim has yet to receive the promised documents and had lodged a report after he failed to contact the suspect, he said.
“We applied for a four-day remand from the Magistrate’s Court to investigate this case,” he said.
On July 24, Sabah MACC director Datuk S. Karunanithy said the suspect and six others were being investigated for demanding bribes under Section 17(a) of the MACC Act 2009.
Five of the suspects were later released on MACC bail after their statements were recorded, he said.
He called on those with information related to this syndicate to come forward and cooperate with the MACC.
