Woman held over personal loan scam involving RM1.33mil losses in Terengganu
The suspect has been remanded from today until next Tuesday to assist police investigations into the case.
Terengganu police chief Datuk Mohd Khairi Khairuddin said the woman, believed to be the mastermind behind the syndicate, was responsible for managing the entire loan process, from identifying borrowers to handling forged documents.
"The woman was arrested in a special operation carried out by the Intelligence and Operations team of the Terengganu Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID), effectively crippling the syndicate, which had been actively operating since last year.
"The arrest followed police investigations into a report lodged at the Kuala Terengganu district police headquarters regarding personal loan fraud cases that caused RM1.33 million in losses between January and April last year," he said in a statement today.
He said preliminary investigations showed that the syndicate had deceived banks by submitting forged documents with loan applications.
He added that the applications were processed by post, without the borrowers being physically present at the bank or having their signatures verified by a bank officer.
According to him, once the loans were approved and the funds transferred into the borrowers' accounts, the borrowers failed to make any repayments.
He said an internal audit by the bank later revealed that the documents used by seven borrowers were fake.
Following the arrest, police seized seven automated teller machine (ATM) cards, four belonging to the borrowers and three to the suspect.
"Also seized were two mobile phones and several documents related to the loan applications," he said.
Mohd Khairi said initial investigations indicated that the suspect had acted as an agent offering loans to individuals who were ineligible for legitimate financing, such as those without a stable income.
He added that the suspect charged a 35 per cent commission on the total approved loan amount and held onto the borrowers' ATM cards until the money was credited into their accounts.
All initial dealings were conducted via WhatsApp before any physical meetings were arranged.
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