Once rumours began to circulate about an investment scheme, victims began to contact each other. Last week, 105 of them turned up, en masse, at a police station to report a fraud.

The stories are commonplace: One victim told reporters that the agent had showed documents, apparently from government agencies proving authorisation. Another said she paid the fraudsters the equivalent of MYR300000.00 (ten years average pay, according to the Malaysian government) because she was offered an annual return of 30% and the agent told her that named VVIPs and politicians had invested into the scheme.

That was in 2019 but she never received any payments and the company ignored her when she tried to chase her money. That victim's nationality is not available and one suspects that the name she gave reporters may not be genuine. Why? Because her first port of call to seek assistance was not the regulator nor the police but Malaysia International Humanitarian Organisation (MHO) where the scale of the problem was beginning to become known.

Another, a Yemini national, said he was approached by someone claiming to be a "relationship" manager of a bank - but it seems that there was no such bank. In his case, he was convinced by the representation that his "investment" would be into Islamic Bonds, known as sukuk and a seafood business and that, together, they would generate a return of more than 10% per annum. He handed over MYR330,000.

Targeting vulnerable, often undocumented, people is a long-established tactic of fraudsters. But this is a particularly successful scheme with, according to the Malaysian International Humanitarian Organisation, the total number of victims now up to 300.

It is clear that one of the basic tools of the fraud was to promote the schemes as having religious connotations and that this is enough to make some victims satisfied as to the legitimacy of the proposal.

But not all fall into these categories: one who says she lost about half a million ringgit said she was duped because the fraudsters had an official-looking agreement which she signed. When she tried to get money back, she was told that there were delays because of the pandemic.

The 150 who attended the police station were the latest: more than 100 reports had previously been filed. A spokesman for Malaysian International Humanitarian Organisation reportedly said that the total losses so far reported come to more than MYR300 million, that's around GBP60 million.

Some victims have said that they did receive some payments for a few months then it stopped and the excuses began.

For local victims, it seems that the fraudsters tapped into the same vein of naïveté as many of its politicians. " it's just sad for me because they said this investment is for the Malays," said one, local media reported.

Further reading: https://www.dosm.gov.my/v1/index.php?r=column/cthemeByCat&cat=157&bul_i…