Land Fraud Recorded Highest Losses In Cheating Cases Last Year
13/02/2007 Bernama

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 13 (Bernama) -- Seventy-nine fraud cases involving land transactions caused people to suffer the highest losses due to cheating last year, amounting to RM4.8 million of the RM16 million overall lost, said Commercial Crimes Investigation Department Deputy Director II Datuk Abdul Razak Abdul Ghani .

He said the "first come first served" tactic used by land cheats who offered very low prices for land plots often got people to make deposits for purchases of dubious land lots.

"People need to be very careful when dealing with land matters as the con artists involved are very slick," he told reporters here today.

He said the culprits usually acted alone and disappeared when money was paid.

This was followed by cheating by bomohs, fortune tellers with reported losses amounting to RM2.8 million involving 120 cases, he added.

Others involved cheating using the SMS (short messaging system) on the Academi Fantasia 4 competition (RM14,170), scratch and win contests (RM281,000), forged 4D tickets (RM1.3 million), SMS "lucky draws" in Mandarin (RM162,000), welfare fraud (RM178,000), car transactions (RM2.1 million), bounced cheques RM1.3 million and fraudulent Haj packages (RM265,000).