KUALA LUMPUR: The 60-year-old "mother" from a family who allegedly pulled a donation scam worth hundreds of thousands of ringgit is threatening to commit suicide.
When breaking her silence in a series of TikTok videos yesterday, the woman claimed that many people have been lambasting her family for what they did.
She said she would have to end her life as it was the only solution to the problem.
She wanted the public to stop making videos about the family.
Describing her family as "victims", she is now putting the blame entirely on her 33-year-old daughter in India, whose alleged uterus cancer treatment necessitated the family to raise funds.
In the video, the woman admitted to withdrawing RM100,000 out of the RM308,000 in donations that the family received before TikTok content creator V. Muralitharan lodged a police report against them, which led to her account being frozen.
She said she and her 28-year-old "son" withdrew RM100,000 the morning after Muralitharan raised RM308,000.
"I did withdraw the money and send it to my daughter in India through a local money transfer agent, who would normally give it to her in India. But this time, I don't know what happened to the money.
"My daughter's phone has been switched off since then," said the woman in the video.
She said she and her son went to the Masjid India area here to hand over the RM100,000 to an "undiyil", or illegal money collection agent. She claimed that they had used the agent's services before.
She said the money was sent online to a mobile number registered to a woman named Latha, who is allegedly a friend of the family.
The woman was seen crying in the video when she claimed that her "daughter" had abused the family's trust.
"As a mother, all I wanted was to save her life by raising the money she requested for her operation. Who would have thought that my own daughter would end up doing this to me?"
The mother of four also tried to defend her actions by asking viewers why none of them informed her that her daughter was scamming her.
"Had anyone checked and told me this earlier, I would have stopped going around asking for donations.
"Even when I went around to seek help from certain non-governmental organisations and the Tamil newspapers, why didn't anyone tell me if this thing was genuine or not?"
She apologised to people for trusting her daughter and thanked all those who helped raise the funds.
She begged netizens to stop making TikTok videos about the family and to let her remaining three children live in peace.
Meanwhile, Selangor police have initiated an investigation under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
State police chief Datuk Hussain Omar said investigations were underway.
"Arrests would be made if required," he said, adding that police did not rule out the possibility of seeking assistance from their counterparts in India.