By Balqis Jazimah Zahari
KERIAN: A businessman suffered a loss of RM870,000 after being tricked into making a non-existent cryptocurrency investment.
Perak Police Chief, Datuk Seri Mohd Yusri Hassan Basri said, at 11.15pm last Sunday, the Commercial Crime Investigation Division of the Kerian District Police Headquarters received a police report regarding the case from a 54-year-old man.
According to the victim, the incident happened on June 24, when the victim was contacted by a woman (suspect) through the WhatsApp application, assuring him that she had made a big profit in cryptocurrency investment.
“As a result of being deceived by the suspect’s words, the victim started making investments by putting money into the cryptocurrency application given by the suspect.
“Initially the victim only invested RM5,000 and made a profit of about RM1,000. After that the victim managed to recover the capital together with the profit,” he said in a statement here on Monday.
Mohd Yusri said, later, the suspect asked the victim to make a bigger investment to get a higher profit.
“Due to being deceived, the victim made several transactions online through the bank account given by the suspect involving a total of RM870,000 and the victim was promised a profit worth RM5 million.
“After that, the victim asked the suspect to make a withdrawal but various reasons were given and the victim was also asked to make a processing fee amounting to 30 percent of the total withdrawal,” he said.
He said, until now the victim has not received any profit from the investment and the victim felt deceived and made a police report.
“The case is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code and the investigation is still ongoing,” he said.
