Nine Nigerians Arrested For Fraud In Malaysia

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Police in Malaysia have arrested nine Nigerians suspected of having cheated a beautician of an estimated $427,000, Borneo Post online has reported.

According to Commercial Crime Investigation Department head Supt Mohd Firdaus Abdullah, all suspects stationed at the country’s capital were arrested last Wednesday, after two local suspects in Kuching were released on bail following an interrogation.

“We traced these foreigners through the Internet Protocol Address provided by one of the local suspects,” he said when contacted yesterday.

Eight of the foreign suspects were students and one a businessman, aged 22 to 31.

They are placed under remand until May 29 to facilitate investigation.
A team from state police headquarters was assigned to go to Kuala Lumpur to investigate.

The beautician, in her early 30s, is single. She lodged a police report after realising that she had been conned several times since early this year.
The victim said she was conned of an estimated RM1.3 million($427,000) that involved seven banks, 16 accounts and 40 transactions in more than three months.

Firdaus advised the public, especially women, not to be taken in by their online contacts to avoid being victims of cyber crime.

He hoped this case would be a lesson to those making friends online.

“We regret that this kind of case is still happening. We have given lots of advice and publicity, yet people still fall for these scams,” he said.

The swindlers used social network connection like Facebook, e-mail and chat room to establish friendship before sending parcels they claim to be presents.
They would say the parcels contained valuables and the victims had to make several payments to Customs and ‘agents’ to claim their ‘gifts’ as the parcels had been ‘confiscated’ by Customs Malaysia.