MIRI, Malaysia - A businessman has lodged a police report alleging that a friend swindled him out of RM150,000 (S$61,000) in a scam to "manufacture and multiply" money.

The businessman, in his late 40s, claimed that the friend conned him into paying the money after introducing him to a medium said to have the special power to "multiply" ringgit notes.

The medium allegedly demonstrated in front of the businessman in a hotel room on Friday how he turned one piece of RM50 into a big pile of notes.

The friend and medium then cajoled the businessman into handing over RM150,000 in cash with the promise that the money could multiply to RM3mil.

The following day the medium gave the businessman a big box supposedly filled with the RM3mil, with a warning to only open it after three days.

The businessman's curiosity got the better of him and when he opened the box at home, he found piles of "hell notes", used by the Chinese as offerings to the dead.

The police have over the weekend arrested three men, including a foreigner, in connection with the case.