ISKANDAR PUTERI: A 56-year-old restaurateur lost RM413,522 within two months to a fraudulent digital currency investment scheme on Facebook.
The victim lodged a police report yesterday, after attempts to withdraw his promised Bitcoin profit returns amounting to USD1.5 million (RM7.09mil) were futile.
District police chief Assistant Commissioner Rahmat Ariffin said the victim was browsing Facebook in November last year, when he found the Bitcoin investment advertisement link.
He registered for the Bitcoin investment scheme through the provided link, and was duly contacted by the scammer, believed to be a local, for payment purposes.
Between November and January this year, he banked-in RM413,522 in stages to nine different mule bank accounts.
Rahmat said the victim made his first online transfer on Nov 6, and his last transfer was made yesterday.
Within two months, his investments had raked profits up to USD1.5 mil, however, when he attempted to withdrawn them, he was asked to bank-in RM176,575.63 as its processing fee.
It is learnt that the victim had banked in the asked processing fee, and waited eagerly to withdraw the profits.
He realised that he was deceived by the agent and scammed out for his investments, when he was unable to access his account to withdraw the profits, that prompted him to lodge a police report yesterday.
Rahmat said the case was investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
He also reminded members of the public not to rush into making online investments promising extraordinary profits in a short period.
"Practice extra caution before clicking on any links on social media and do not fall for enticing offers before conducting diligent checks," he said.
According to the Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Department, there has been a 53.2 per cent spike in commercial crime cases resulting in losses amounting to RM14.33 billion in the last five years.