wmlro.com: Bizarre document fraud cons Malaysian woman out of MYR1.2m

For us, who live lives immersed in the world of money laundering tricks and techniques, there is little new in the story although it does contain a seemingly novel combination of previously known factors.

The advance fee fraud itself was bog standard. A person was sucked in through an internet contact with a person claiming to be Jeff Brian Manik, an offshore engineer from Britain who wanted to buy a property in Malaysia. He asked the woman, identified only as Madam Lee, to help handle a transfer of GBP2.5 million - approx MYR12 million.

Not that we want to impugn Madam Lee but it's useful to know that the most expensive apartments in the city centre in Kuala Lumpur cost about GBP1 million. There are a small - very, very small - number of houses in and around the city that cost up to the equivalent of GBP2 million. Out of the city, we're talking palaces.

The next part of the story is interesting: an agent for "Manik" passed to Madam Lee a document purporting to be a an "Anti Money Laundering Certificate" issued by "The National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency of United Kingdom."

First, let's give Madam Lee the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is gullible. Had she not been, she might have performed an internet search and in doing so learned that there is no such thing as "The National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency of United Kingdom." And here's a hint: the only country that has an Agency called "The National Drug and Law Enforcement Agency" is Nigeria.

Secondly, as the police pointed out in a press conference, the document itself was suspicious on its face with spelling mistakes such as "paund" for "pound," "ageny" for "agency" and "exptring" for either "expiring" or "expiry" - the context does not make clear which was intended.

The case is the latest in a long line of frauds, many by West Africans purporting to be British or based in Britain, against Malaysians. We have previously reported on such cases, including a series where the victims were identified via social network Friendster which has a high market penetration amongst women in South East Asia.

In the current case, the police say that there appears to have been help from someone local. However, our related consulting company, Silkscreen Consulting , says that it has information in many cases that the people on the ground are in fact West Africans who have legally entered the country and who, for a period of time, make their living out of scams before leaving openly. A representative of the firm said "in central KL, it is common to see West Africans walking around or sitting in coffee shops with mobile phones clamped to their heads. The cost of calling home - or receiving calls from home - is prohibitive for most people therefore they are more likely to be be making local calls. Very few genuine holidaymakers need to make many long local calls."