An elderly local woman lost valuable items worth more than RM15,000 after they were replaced with newspaper and water bottles in a ‘Chinese medicine practitioner’ scam in Lukut, Port Dickson.
According to a report by Oriental Daily, this incident took place on Sunday (March 23) at around 7am, when the 67-year-old woman was in front of a pork butcher shop near the Lukut Market.
She shared that she normally goes to the market with her 2 grandsons but on that day, she had taken her motorcycle to the butcher shop by herself. That’s when she was approached by a woman looking for a Chinese medicine practitioner.
“After I had completed my purchases and was heading back to my motorcycle, a non-local woman asked me if I knew of a Chinese medicine practitioner. She said that she had not been living well since moving to Lukut and that her husband had become paralysed and her daughter was constantly menstruating,” she said.
When she told the woman that she did not know any Chinese medicine practitioners, the woman suddenly approached a nearby passerby with the same question.
The passerby said that she knew a Chinese medical practitioner who had cured her mother-in-law following a fall and offered to take them to see him.
“At first, I had my doubts, wondering if it was a scam because I had seen similar cases in news reports. But, I was curious about the Chinese medicine practitioner. After all, I have lived in Lukut for 40 years and have never heard of this Chinese medicine practitioner. So, I wanted to go and see him.”
Her curiosity got the better of her
The elderly woman decided to follow behind the passerby’s motorcycle on her own motorcycle, to see the Chinese medicine practitioner, while the first woman decided to hop onto the back of her motorcycle and grip onto her shoulders.
While on the way to see the Chinese medicine practitioner, the elderly woman saw a friend by the roadside and wanted to stop to say hello, but the woman behind her pressed into her shoulder; causing her to continue on the journey.
When they reached a housing area, a third woman appeared and asked the passerby, “Are you here to see my father-in-law again?”.
However, rather than going to see the Chinese medicine practitioner, they all ended up talking in the third woman’s car by the roadside.
“The third woman did not take us to the Chinese medicine practitioner’s home. She just asked us to chat in her car parked by the roadside. During this process, the other 2 women accompanied me and kept chatting, asking about my name and family situation,” the elderly woman said.
At this point, she started feeling suspicious that the women might know each other.
This is apparently when the third woman said that her father-in-law would not see them, asked the elderly woman if she believed her and told the elderly woman that a female ghost was following her as it wanted to be with her son.
A ritual or a theft?
The third woman offered to perform a ritual to resolve her ‘female ghost’ problem, leading the elderly woman to fall for the scam by gathering her valuables for the ‘ritual’.
“When I went home to get gold jewellery and cash, I followed her request and didn’t tell anyone. I put the gold jewellery, money and some rice into a red plastic bag and return to the scene to meet the 3 of them,”
“Afterwards, I followed them to the open space behind the CIMB Bank on Jalan Lukut, and watched the third woman perform a ‘ritual’. At one point, she instructed us to turn around and not look back. I believe this is when my property was stolen and replaced,” she shared.
After performing the ‘ritual’, the third woman placed the elderly woman’s ‘belongings’ into a black plastic bag and returned them to her while telling her that she could only open the black plastic bag after 18 days.
She later went out for lunch with her son and constantly reminded him to be careful, causing her son to become confused. After insisting she tell him what’s going on, he discovered that she had fallen for a scam.
“After we came home, I checked the plastic bag that the 3 women handed back to me and I suddenly realised that all the money and gold jewellery had been stolen. There was only a stack of newspapers and 2 bottles of mineral water left in the plastic bag,” she added.
She ultimately lost 3 gold necklaces, a bracelet, a ring and RM4,000 in cash, totalling more than RM15,000.
It could have been worse!
The women had apparently also told the elderly woman to withdraw money but due to it being a Sunday, she was unable to.
It was discovered that another woman had encountered the same group at Lukut Market just days before the elderly woman was scammed. Though, thankfully, that woman ignored them and walked away.
Lukut assemblyman Choo Ken Hwa has since called for the public to be more careful when faced with such encounters. He also reminded people to pay extra attention to their elderly family members, to prevent them from becoming victims of such scams.
What do you think about this? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
