Maid claims ‘Datuk Seri’ took RM38,000 in visa scam

PETALING JAYA: Receiving a tip from a Grabcar driver, a domestic worker from the Philippines decided to contact a man said to be a “Datuk Seri” to help get visas and work permits for five other Filipinos now staying here.

The woman has since regretted her action as she is now RM38,000 poorer and the five Filipinos – a relative and four friends – are now said to be living in fear over not having valid travel documents, New Straits Times reported.

“The ‘Datuk Seri’ is from Perak and he is in his 50s. I found out about him through a Grabcar driver in May last year.

“I made several payments to him totalling RM37,872 for the process since January this year, and I also handed him a passport of my friend’s,” the daily quoted Mercy Belmonte Sison as saying.

The 44-year-old added she was deceived into trusting the man, as she thought the “Datuk Seri” title meant he was “a respectable man in this country”.

Her story came out in a press conference hosted by MCA Public Service and Complaints Bureau chairman Michael Chong in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

According to Sison, after she had paid the Datuk Seri, he started stalling and coming up with excuses, saying that the visas and work permits could not be processed as the officers in charge were on leave.

“After many excuses, I started to feel that something was amiss and lodged a complaint at the MCA Complaints Bureau and also filed a police report.

“My aim is to get my friend’s passport back. I do not expect to get the money back, as I am sure it has been used by him,” she was quoted as saying by NST.

Chong weighed in saying that his team had managed to contact the “Datuk Seri”, but were also given the runaround by the man, with the excuse that he was still trying to solve the issue.

“The first time, he said he was suffering from a stroke. The second time, he told me he has cancer, and the third time he said he was not feeling well.

“So, we believe the man is a scammer and we are trying to bring him to justice,” Chong said, according to NST.

Meanwhile, the MCA Complaints Bureau is said to have received more than 50 other reports this year on such fraud involving scammers or syndicates offering visa processing and work permits for foreigners from the Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and India.

According to Chong, from the cases that his bureau handled, the total losses suffered by foreigners through this scam in 2017 amounted to RM270,000.

“That figure should be much higher, as there are victims who only lodged police reports, or reported the matter to other complaints bureaus,” he said. -FMT