Charged with fraud: The accused being led into the courthouse in Johor Baru. — Bernama
JOHOR BARU: A Taiwanese together with 19 Chinese nationals have claimed trial after they were charged at the Magistrate’s Court here with cheating.
The accused, aged between 21 and 36, were charged under Section 420 of the Penal Code.
They are Wu Wen Jung, He Jie, Guang Liang, Jin Yi Hao, Zhang Wei, Liu Zhi Rong, Li Ya Xuan, Ran You, Zhang Shi Han, Zhao Run Qiang and Lu Ye Ri.
The others are Li Peng, Yu Liang, Liu Bing, Liu Lin, Li Jia Gang, Chen Kui Peng, Zhi Xiao Bo, Zhao Ke Yu and Wang Yin Cheng.
They allegedly committed the offence at a house in Iskandar Puteri on Sept 23.
According to the charge sheet, which was read out in Mandarin, the 20 foreign men were involved in a conspiracy to trick victims through a love scam.
After the charge was read out to them, they pleaded not guilty in front of magistrate Hidayatul Syuhada Shamsudin here yesterday.
Each of the accused was granted RM8,000 bail with two Malaysian sureties.
Hidayatul Syuhada also set Nov 18 for the next mention of the case for handover of documents.
She also ordered each accused to report to the nearest police station every month until the case was settled.
Deputy public prosecutor R. Nevina prosecuted while lawyers Goh Sze Han and Ahmad Yusri Ahmad Fuad represented all 20 of the accused.
Earlier, Johor police chief Comm Datuk M. Kumar said in a statement that a premises was turned into a calling centre, which offered non-existent jobs to victims living overseas.
“During the raid, police seized several devices, including computers and mobile phones used by the suspects to carry out their illegal activities,” he said.
The syndicate would find their victims online and use love scams to cheat them, he added.
He said the victims were offered jobs with high returns in a short time and were given access to a website, which showed the profits they made for every task given.
“The victims only realised they had been cheated after failing to withdraw their profits shown on the website despite making many payments as ordered by the suspects,” Comm Kumar said.
He urged the public to be more vigilant and not easily swayed by any offers online that promised high returns in a short time.
