Women with marital problems fall victims to 'Love Scam'

Women with marital problems and middle-age single mothers have a greater tendency to fall victims to syndicates of 'Love Scam', which are master-minded by foreign men.

This was revealed by investigating officer at the Cyber and Multimedia Criminal Division of the Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department, ASP Mohd Syafiq Jinuin Abdullah.

Mohd Syafiq said most of the women, who were easily deceived by such syndicates, were between the ages of 31 and 40.

Loneliness and unhappy marriage were among factors that lured these women to the syndicates, he said, adding that women who had no time to socialise or find their own life partner could also fall to the syndicate.

"They (syndicate members) have their own script to sweet talk or entice these women into falling in love with them before deceiving them through the social websites, like Facebook," he told Bernama recently.Mohd Syafiq said based on the victims' profiles, the syndicate members chose their victims at random.

He said women who had fallen victims to the syndicates included professionals, like doctors, lawyers, teachers, lecturers, bank officers and businesswomen.

Since 2013 until August this year, he said, 5,456 cases of online love scam had been recorded, involving losses of more than RM215 million.

Mohd Syafiq advised members of the public not to divulge their personal and bank information to persons they befriended on the Internet or to send money to people they did not know.

- Bernama