Deceiving 85 People For Fictitious Hajj Pilgrimage, This Man Sentenced to 2 Years in Prison

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JAKARTA - This man deceived more than 85 people related to the pilgrimage. Without mercy, he will have to serve a 2-year sentence.

Mohd Ramlee AB Samad (62 years old) pleaded guilty to 20 counts of fraud. And there are still 65 similar charges that are still being considered to serve as additional penalties, Thursday, July 7, quoted from Channel News Asia.

He admitted to defrauding 69 people into paying more than S$97,000 for the 2018 Hajj tour. 85 victims were also deceived into handing over their passports to him for visas.

He ran a scam with the help of his friend Fahrorazi Sohoi, a religious teacher who turned out to be bankrupt.

The court explained that in May 2018, Ramlee informed Fahrorazi that there was a place available on the discounted trip for Hajj that year, from August 19 to August 24, 2018.

Ramlee claimed to have been notified of the travel discount by a man named Mohsein. He claims representatives from the Saudi authorities have collaborated with Singaporean authorities.

He also claimed that flights and accommodation would be borne by the Saudi authorities, and participants only had to pay S$1,550 for airport taxes, administrative costs, and sacrifice rituals.

He also claimed that the participant quota would be obtained under Batam and Brunei quotas because Singapore's Hajj quota was full, the court said.

Ramlee asked Fahrorazi to look for participants who were interested and collect payments and passports from them. In return, he will receive a S$200 commission for each participant. Fahrorazi agreed and looked for participants.

In fact, Ramlee knew that there had never been such a trip, and intended to trick the victims through Fahrorazi into tricking them into making payments, said Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Zhi Hao and Ryan Lim.

Fahrorazi made up-front payments to be sent to Ramlee's bank account even before collecting full payments from the victims. Ramlee said places on tours and flights had to be ordered. He transferred a total of about S$40,000 to Ramlee.

On or around August 13, 2018, Ramlee left Singapore for Batam.

On August 15, 2018, several victims suspected the trip was a scam when Fahrorazi informed them that the departure date had been postponed one day until August 17, 2018.

Ramlee was arrested on October 4, 2018, when he returned to Singapore from Batam. A total of 82 passports belonging to the victim were confiscated from him.

The victim's three passports and cash of more than S$196,000 were confiscated from Fahrorazi.