Penang calls on police to nab politician over RM4m deal
Published on: Wednesday, October 01, 2014
PENANG: The Penang government has called on the police to take action against a former youth leader of a state Umno branch, who allegedly cheated a group of people over the sale of gold bars worth more than RM4 million.Chief Minister Lim Guan Eng said he would ask state police chief Datuk Abdul Rahim Hanafi to speed up investigations, as the victims had lodged police reports several months ago. Lim claimed that checks revealed that the suspect was an Umno member and a former youth leader in an Umno branch in the state.
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"He was also believed to be one of the people who trespassed into the state legislative assembly building on May 19 this year," said Lim, citing an incident a few months ago where a group of protesters broke through a security barrier in response to Seri Delima assemblyman R.S.N. Rayer's infamous "celaka Umno" (Umno be damned) remark."We hope the police can investigate and take action quickly. There is no doubt that this is a case of cheating that has affected more than 17 families," he said.Several of the victims of the scam met with Lim today to air their grouses.One of the victims, Abdul Wahab S. Mohd Mydin, 45, claimed the man had offered him and 16 others in his group attractive prices to buy their gold bars, which they had previously bought from Genneva (M) Sdn Bhd.
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The prices were above the market price and the deal was that they must hand over their gold bars and the man would pay them in installments via post-dated cheques, he said."He told us it was unnecessary to put things in black and white.
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All we had to do was give him the gold bars and he will present the cheques."He said if he failed to furnish the cheques, we can go to the police. He said so himself, as if it was nothing," the factory manager said.Because the deal sounded good, Abdul Wahab and 16 others, agreed to the transaction of selling a total of 16,635 grammes of gold bars to the man for RM4,946,960 in October and November last year.The group managed to cash in a total of RM710,349 with the cheques they received. The subsequent post-dated cheques for RM1,570,161 bounced while the remaining RM2,665,108 were in cheques that have not been cashed in."We never got the remaining RM4,235,269 promised. The cheques could not be cashed."He told us not to cash in the cheques in December, saying that he was having problems with the bank. Then, he made more excuses to avoid paying."In early June, we decided to cash in the cheques because the period has matured but we found out we could not get the money because he had closed his bank account," Abdul Wahab said, adding that they want their gold bars back.He said all of them had lodged police reports on the matter but were told that the case was too complicated as it involved a large sum of money.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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