Wanted: Missing lawyers in CBT cases
27/05/2007 NST By Audrey Dermawan

GEORGE TOWN: More than 100 lawyers are on police’s wanted list for investigations into criminal breach of trust (CBT) cases involving tens of millions of ringgit.

The cases were reported as far back as 1995, with 32 being solved to date.

This year alone, 50 reports were lodged against lawyers nationwide.

Most of these lawyers are no longer practising.

In describing the situation as "alarming", Federal Commercial Crime director Datuk Ramli Yusuff said police would seek the help of the Bar Council to track down these lawyers.  "The majority of these cases involve lawyers who represented clients in sale and purchase transactions," Ramli said.

"Somehow or other, the ex-lawyers ended up misusing the money in their clients’ accounts. The amount varies from hundreds of thousands of ringgit to millions."

Ramli was here to attend a meeting with all state commercial crime chiefs.

He said there was a case of a Kedah-based lawyer who was being sought in connection with seven or eight CBT cases involving millions of ringgit.

He, however, refused to divulge further details, saying investigations were still going on.

The victims, he said, were professionals, individuals and even companies.

Ramli said most of the cases were reported late, about two to three years after the alleged crime, with some cases going as far as 10 years back.

"Due to this, we have difficulty in tracing them," he said.

Ramli added that police believe these lawyers were still in the country after conducting checks with the Immigration Department.

Meanwhile, police have released the photographs and last known addresses of 25 people whose assistance is being sought.