KUALA LUMPUR: Three families have taken the drastic step of disowning their children who borrowed money from loan sharks and failed to repay, after facing continuous harassment and humiliation.
Kong, a 50-year-old businesswoman from Ayer Tawar, Perak, shared her story of her 23-year-old son who had taken loans amounting to hundreds of thousands and subsequently lost it all to online gambling.
To settle her son’s debts of RM500,000, Kong had advised him to seek employment in Singapore and repent for his actions back in May 2022.
In June this year, Kong began receiving threats from loan sharks, leading to her house and her in-laws’ house being splashed with red paint two weeks ago. The loan sharks also threatened to set their houses on fire.
Kong initially succumbed to the loan sharks’ demands and paid over RM21,000, but they demanded an additional RM5,000 claiming the payment was late by ten minutes.
When she refused, her shop was splashed with red paint two days later.
Another case in Johor Baru involved a family whose 21-year-old son borrowed money for online gambling, resulting in similar harassment from loan sharks. Rico Loh, a 27-year-old beautician, shared that her brother borrowed money from multiple family members and took loans from around 20 individuals known as Ah Long.
Her family managed to settle debts with loan sharks totaling RM150,000, but her brother again borrowed RM70,000 from an Ah Long just a few days later.
A 71-year-old retiree, known only as Lee, also faced a similar situation when his 37-year-old son took loans from almost 50 loan sharks amounting to RM500,000 since 2019 to fuel his gambling addiction. Lee had to utilize his Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings to settle the loans.
All three families made the decision to disown their sons and announced it at the MCA Public Services and Complaints Department at Wisma MCA on August 7. Datuk Seri Michael Chong, the department’s head, expressed that the families had no choice but to disown their sons due to the continuous harassment from Ah Longs.
“These are not just loan sharks, but extortionists. They entice people to take loans through social media advertisements, only providing a fraction of the requested amount. Later on, they demand the full sum and resort to violence to ensure repayment. The thugs, known as runners, are paid RM400 for each job they carry out,” Chong explained.
Chong revealed that his department has handled 199 similar cases this year, involving a total loan amount of RM18.7 million. Among those cases, 53 involved women and 80% of the borrowers were of Chinese ethnicity.
Credit: The Star : News Feed
