At the heart of most scams lie two fundamental human emotions that scammers prey on: fear and greed. And once scammers are able to tap into either one of them, the scam is most likely to succeed.
A vegetable trader found his greed becoming his financial undoing after he foolishly believed that he would be granted a hefty amount of inheritance money left behind by an individual who never existed.
Tricked into believing RM61mil inheritance lie
According to the New Straits Times (NST), Pahang police chief Datuk Seri Yahaya Othman said the 69-year-old victim received a call from a ‘bank officer’ via Facebook on Mar 30, 2023.
In the call, the ‘banker’ claimed to be calling from the Barclays Bank based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates and offered the victim a deal, where he was required to admit that he was related to an individual who had left behind a fortune of US$26 million (RM123 million).
“If the victim agreed to it, he would be given half of the inheritance money. He was then connected to a lawyer who was allegedly handling the case and assured that the money will be transferred to him once the process was complete,” said Yahaya.
Transferred RM958,088 in savings
Completely unaware that it was a sham, the victim unwittingly made 70 transactions amounting to RM958,088 to 26 different bank accounts after he was instructed to pay tax, levy charges, anti-laundering fees and various other payments.
The transactions were made over the course of 11 months between May 9 last year and March 11.
The victim later saw through the scam after he was constantly pressured into making various payments in order to earn the cash and lodged a police report on Tuesday (Apr 9).
Yahaya called upon the public to be on their guard whenever they receive calls from individuals offering similar ‘deals’ and verify with the authorities.
The case is now being probed under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
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