A Malaysian woman, 桃子乌龙茶, recently took to Xiao Hong Shu to share how she had lost an estimated RM4,000 in ang pow money after taking a bus from Kuala Lumpur to Johor.
She wrote, “On the 7th day of Chinese New Year, all my ang pow money was gone. The day before yesterday (Tuesday, February 4), I took the (bus company) long-distance bus from TBS to Larkin Sentral. As soon as I got home and opened my suitcase, I felt something was wrong.”
“This is because the zipper pull tab easily came off the zipper head (my suitcase was newly bought). I immediately opened my suitcase to check if anything was missing. I saw that all of my clothes were still there and then, I looked at my ang pows that were placed in the inner layer of the suitcase. They were still sealed nicely.”
Her ang pows were emptied out
She initially assumed that she was just being suspicious but upon opening her ang pows, she had a shock!
“I opened them one by one and saw that they were all empty. My heart hurt so much. These were all the ang pows for this year, including money from my parents and relatives. There were also ang pows from my colleagues and my boss as a year-end bonus, which was in SGD,”
“A rough calculation showed that there were at least RM4,000 or more!”
The luggage was pried open
Upon taking a closer look at her suitcase zipper, she noticed that the slider body had been pried open to create a larger gap.
This allowed for the pull tab to be taken out from the zipper head and the suitcase to be opened despite the zipper being fastened to the suitcase’s combination lock.
Considering the meticulousness of the theft, she believes it could have been done by one of the bus drivers.
“It was obviously done by a repeat offender. I guess the bus drivers are the most suspicious ones because only the drivers can open the luggage compartment. And there were 2 drivers on the bus I took. When I was about to get onto the bus, one of the drivers was very enthusiastic in helping me place my luggage in the luggage compartment,”
“The bus stopped at 2 places. One stop was at a petrol station not long after departure and it stopped for about 10 minutes. I don’t know why the bus stopped there as no one got on or off. The second time was at a rest stop for about 20 minutes to allow passengers to use the toilet and buy food,” she explained.
Additionally, she questioned why the perpetrator did not just take the ang pow packets, but instead carefully opened and resealed each one after taking the money.
A police report was filed
桃子乌龙茶 filed a police report in regards to this but claimed the police were not much help.
“I also took the suitcase to the police station that night. But, I felt that the police were uninterested. Maybe because the amount of money taken was too small for them. They said there was no evidence to arrest anyone and question them, and they asked me what I wanted them to do,”
“This is a profound lesson. From now on, I will carry my money and valuables with me,” she added.
What would you have done if you were in her shoes? Do feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section.
Also read: Penang Woman Travels To & From KL by Flight Daily for Work, Says It’s Cheaper Than Living in KL
