KUALA LUMPUR, 5 Jan 2009: The Public Complaints Bureau (PCB) is waiting for Bank Negara’s report on illegal bank transfers from depositors’ accounts before taking action, said Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Department T Murugiah.
He said preliminary investigations showed the money from the accounts was siphoned to Indonesia but the culprits involved had yet to be determined.
“Bank Negara has a mechanism on how to trace them. We will just have to wait for Bank Negara to complete their probe before we (PCB) take any action,” he told reporters after visiting Sekolah Jenis Kebangsaan Tamil (SJKT) Vivekananda here today.
Yesterday, Murugiah revealed that 40 individuals, comprising Malaysians and Indonesians, were arrested in Lahad Datu, Sabah, for suspected involvement in a syndicate that transferred money to Indonesia through electronic banking.
Following the revelation, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak, who is also Finance Minister, instructed Bank Negara to probe the matter.
In KOTA KINABALU, the Consumers’ Association of Sabah and Labuan (Cash) called on Bank Negara or Ministry of Finance (MoF) to present a White Paper on the hijacked bank accounts.
Its president Datuk Patrick Sindu said this issue had been around for a while and that Cash had received several complaints on similar problems.
“There is no point of just talking about the scam, we need something concrete especially with the global economic crisis we are dealing with now,” he told Bernama.
