SIBU: It was the chance of a lifetime but a woman who was conned of her life savings, yesterday stumbled on the China national who did it and seized her quarry.
The 51-year-old surnamed ‘Lau’ was shopping with her family at a supermarket in Salim Road at 10.30am when she spotted the trickster who ripped her of RM180,000 in Bintulu last year.
She held the woman by the hair when the latter struggled and tried to escape.
Her daughter and relatives also hopped to her aid by grabbing hold of the woman.
A bystander who summoned the police also tipped off Lau that the China national had two friends talking to other women, believing they were targeting other victims.
When the suspect was caught, her accomplices apparently fled the place. The suspect, who insisted she was not a foreigner, said she was merely waiting for her husband.
When her ‘husband’ was a no-show, patrolling policemen took her back to the police station.
The suspect would be taken to Bintulu to assist police in the cheating case.
From her passport, the woman, 41, was confirmed to be from China. When police checked her handphone, it was found she had dialled a number for the name “BOI”.
On calling the number, a woman answered but remained silent.
When police made another call to the same number, it could not be reached.
The fiasco unfolded on Nov 29 last year at a market in Bintulu. When Lau was walking from there to her car, ‘X’ (the detained suspect) approached her.
Lau, who consequently lodged a police report in Bintulu, said X had queried her for the whereabouts of a good physician to cure her daughter, 9, of a prematured menstruation.
When Lau said she did not know, a second woman showed up saying she knew of an elderly physician. Lau told the second woman to bring X to the physician but was persuaded to follow suit.
When they arrived at a supermarket, a third woman appeared claiming to be the ‘granddaughter’ of the physician and said her grandfather was not free for consultation but he knew the names of Lau’s family and predicted her “second son would die”.
To save her son, Lau was told to withdraw all of her money to perform black magic. She withdrew RM50,000 and borrowed RM110,000 from her best friend.
Lau told police the China women took her gold jewellery worth RM20,000 and placed it in a black plastic bag along with the money for enchantment.
After that, the bag was returned to Lau who was told not to open it within the two weeks.
At a coffee shop later, she narrated the incident to her friends. Feeling something was amiss, she opened the bag and was shocked to find stones, vegetables and fruits in it.
A distraught Lau had even attempted suicide, being cheated of her life savings… until yesterday when the villain came to a fateful end.