KUANTAN: Lured by the promise of getting easy money, a senior citizen was cheated of her hard-earned savings of RM280,000 by three people she befriended yesterday.
Pahang Commercial CID chief Supt Mohd Wazir Mohd Yusof said the 73-year-old victim claimed she handed over the money to the three suspects, including a woman, who had told her that the amount could be doubled.
The elderly woman said that after she delivered the money at the car park of a shopping mall here, one of the male suspects took a bag containing the money into a store, on the pretext of wanting to count the money.
“The victim waited at the car park with another male suspect, before that suspect left the victim alone and all three suspects disappeared,” he told reporters here today.
Mohd Wazir said the victim claimed to have known the three just a few hours earlier at a wet market, after the woman suspect lured here with a consolation prize money supposedly from a petrol station.
The victim claimed she was given a reward card and was brought to the petrol station in Beserah here to collect a RM200 prize money before the suspect offered ‘service’ to double the victim’s money.
The suspect also said the money belongs to an organisation that wanted to evade tax payments.
The victim lodged a police report at the Kuantan police headquarters yesterday.
The case is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating, which provides for a maximum jail term of 10 years and whipping, and a fine on conviction. — Bernama