Two devout believers of a religion in the Southern state of Johor have reportedly fallen victim to the schemes of a religious shaman, and had lost a staggering RM310,000 over the course of three years as a consequence. As reported by local newspaper Sin Chew Daily, the victims consisted of 40-year-old single mother Liang Xiuling (transliteration) who works in the service industry, and 53-year-old Huang Zhenghua (transliteration) who works as a fishmonger.
Two victims get scammed out of more than RM300,000 by religious shaman
Both were deceived after they had attempted to seek out for advice from the divine, and believed that the shaman had the ability to communicate with deities. Hoping that the authorities would investigate into the matter thoroughly, they lodged a police report in Muar before reaching out to the Simpang Renggam assemblyman’s community services team for help to share their plight and expose the female shaman through a press conference.
In the case of 40-year-old Liang, she had first reached out to the shaman after facing problems from within her family and had visited his temple back in 2019 to seek for answers regarding questions she had about her second uncle. The shaman proceeded to ask her to pay for a variety of expenses in relation to religious rituals that the female shaman would help her conduct.
“Every time I went to her for advice, she would ask me for money using different reasons, including an initial payment of RM7,652.
She even told me that if I can’t pay it off in one go, I could opt to split the amount into separate installments. If I didn’t pay up, she warned that my family business would not go well, and that my children will not live in peace.” she explained.
Even took out a loan to help meet the shaman’s demands
Fearing the shaman’s threatening tone, she wound up dutifully paying the amount using money she had earned from Singapore that would otherwise have gone to buying her family a new home in Malaysia. Eventually, this amounted to around RM316,803 in monthly installments paid for by Liang, reports Oriental Daily.
In fact, she even went so far as to take out a RM94,000 bank loan in order to pay the shaman and is now stuck having to pay off RM4,000 on the loan per month. She hopes that in speaking out, no other victims will fall prey to the shaman’s ploy, and that she would be able to recoup some of the money she had lost.
On the other hand, Huang had reached out to the shaman on the advice of a friend after facing difficulties at work. He was cheated out of RM1,500, and only realised that he was being scammed when the shaman proceeded to ask him for an additional RM10,000 under the pretense of the deity’s demands.
The public have been warned against making donations to any religious or non-profit organisations that are not registered under the Registrar of Societies in Malaysia, and to always ask for a receipt as proof.
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