KUALA LUMPUR: Police arrested three men believed to be involved in unlicensed money-lending or ‘Ah Long’ activities and defrauded a woman in June.
Petaling Jaya district police chief ACP Mohd Fahkrudin Abdul Hamid(pix) said the local individuals aged between 30 and 50 were arrested in Klang, Selangor, yesterday following a report by the complainant on June 23.
He said the 32-year-old local victim had seen a loan advertisement on Facebook and contacted one of the men through Whatsapp and phone calls asking about the loan, before handing in a picture of her identity card, financial statement and salary slip on the same day (June 23).
“On the same day at about 1pm, she realised that RM8,000 had been deposited into her bank account by the suspect who asked the victim to pay back RM10,000 within three days.
“The victim, who was still undecided on taking the loan, subsequently returned the sum of RM8,000 to the account number given by the suspect,“ he said in a statement today.
Fahkrudin said however the ‘loan shark’ was unhappy that the woman did not include the remaining RM2,000, the suspect then sent threatening notices to the woman’s home and office.
According to him, when arrested, all three admitted to working in customer service for three months to two years and were assigned to harass borrowers if they failed to make payments as stipulated.
“They also had previous convictions in Ah Long cases and were remanded for four days to assist in investigations under Section 5(2) of the Licensed Money Lenders Act 1952,“ he said.
He advised the public not to be trapped by Ah Long’s cunning tactic of ‘promoting’ loans.-Bernama