By : Jason Gerald John

MALACCA, MALAYSIA: One of a parent's worst fears is that his or her child may be kidnapped, either for ransom or to be sold to the highest bidder.

Taking advantage of this, a syndicate is believed to have hit on a way to get money, without even having to bother abducting anyone.

The syndicate would contact well-to-do couples and claim their children had been abducted, instructing the panicked parents to deposit the ransom money in a bank account provided by them.

The first contact would be a text message from a number registered in a neighbouring country. Subsequent contact would come in the form of telephone calls from a locally-registered private number.

Four reports have been lodged against the syndicate since last month.

State Commercial Crime Investigation Department chief Superintendent Sum Chang Keong said syndicate members would make the alleged kidnapping more believable by playing recorded sounds of children crying and screaming.

He said in the first case brought to the attention of police on Dec 23, a woman claimed she had lost RM1,900 to the scam.

The syndicate, he said, had demanded RM20,000 from the woman but after she deposited the RM1,900, she managed to contact her child who assured her he was safe.

On Jan 5 and 9, two more parents lodged reports against the syndicate.

"In both these cases, however, the parents managed to track down their children in their respective schools," said Sum.

In the fourth case, the syndicate managed to convince a 60-year-old woman to deposit RM5,500 into their account.

"This is clearly a cleverly-hatched scam and the public should be careful not to fall prey to this tactic," said Sum, adding that those who received such text messages should first contact the police.

Sum said another syndicate had recently tried to do something similar by impersonating officers from Bank Negara Malaysia, the courts and other government agencies.

"The victims were contacted and told that some dirty money had been detected in their bank accounts. They would then be given another account where they claimed the money could be transferred into to be 'cleaned'.

"They managed to con people of RM353,181 but were crippled with the arrest of five men in Sabah and Johor."

-- New Straits Times

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