http://www.theborneopost.com/2011/11/24/co...-cheat-victims/

Con man poses as lawyer to cheat victims
MIRI: Miri police on Tuesday arrested a 25-year-old bogus lawyer who cheated two persons – a man and a housewife – in the city.

The suspect was arrested in his house at Hilltop Garden around 8pm on Tuesday following reports made by the victims.

In the first cheating case, the suspect allegedly cheated a man of RM22,000 as payment to negotiate with the authority not to deport a female masseuse back to China.

The masseuse was arrested by police in an anti-vice operation in the city recently, and was detained in an Immigration Detention Centre pending the deportation order.

The bogus lawyer asked the man, a friend of the masseuse, for RM22,000 as a fee to negotiate with the authority on her behalf. The man paid but the masseuse was deported back to China. Realising he had been cheated by the suspect, he lodged a police report.

In the second cheating case, a Chinese woman, believed married to a local and working in the city, paid the suspect RM14,900 to process the visa for her daughter in China to come to live and study in Miri. But after paying the bogus lawyer, her daughter was still unable to come to Miri so she lodged a police report.

Acting on the information, police arrested the suspect in his house at Hilltop Garden here on Tuesday night. He is being detained in the police lock-up for investigation of offences under Section 420 of the Penal Code. Last year, he was arrested for the same offence namely posing as a lawyer to settle a case where a government officer was arrested for drug abuse. The suspect offered to settle the case out of court for RM1,000 from the officer who paid him at a park lot of a shopping complex in the city around 8pm on Sept 27 last year.

He asked for another RM2,000 from the officer in front of Miri Post Office at Jalan Merpati here around 2pm on Sept 30.