MALAYSIA Klang - Huang Weifa, a 22 year old iron factory manager, was caught up in an online investment scam. He was lured to borrow money from a loan shark where his debts snowballed. Feeling overwhelmed by the stress of his debts, he took his life by jumping into a river.
Since his death, his family became the target of the loan sharks. While his family was grieving over the loss of their loved one, they were also constantly intimidated and harassed by the debt collectors. The loan sharks threatened his surviving family members with physical harm, even saying they will burn down their house.
One afternoon, the victim drove to his usual fishing spot, the fishing area of Sambilang in Sungai, Lam, and took his life there.
Huang Weifa, 22, was overwhelmed by debts and committed suicide by jumping into the river.
Before his death, he had sent a message to his girlfriend Jiang Chengran before stopping contact. Jiang Chengran then asked Huang Weifa's boss and his brothers for help, after which they immediately went to the Pantai fishing area. There they found his car and his body that had washed up on the coast.
After calling the police, the family found that the deceased had left a bunch of messages in the car and mobile phone, explaining that he had been lured into taking out loans, and only then they learned that he had been scammed and was in financial trouble.
During the family's funeral for Huang Weifa, five groups of loan sharks began to stir trouble, asking Huang’s family to repay the remaining debts. They were also constantly sending text messages to his family about collecting debt.
Huang never mentioned borrowing money from loan sharks when talking to his family
The second brother of the deceased, Huang Weilian (23 years old), pointed out that two days before his death, Huang Weifa came to borrow 4,000 Malaysian Ringgit [RM] from him, saying he wanted to return the money to his friends. Weifa is the youngest in the family. He never once mentioned that he was defaulting on loan shark debts and did not show he was lacking money. Two days before his death, he suddenly told his brother that he needed to borrow money during a private conversation. It was there Weifa revealed that he fell victim to an online investment fraud and had borrowed money from his friends, and now he had to pay back some friends. However, he had never mentioned about borrowing from loan sharks.
His brother said that on the first day of Weifa’s funeral, the loan sharks called their eldest brother Huang Weilun at 3pm to collect the debt, and then at 11pm the next day, he sent another text message stating "the son should be responsible for repaying the debts the father owed before his death" (referring to how the family ought to repay the debts of Huang Weifa before his death), otherwise the loan shark will target his family and threatened to set their house on fire.
"Now at least five groups of people are coming to collect debts. In the past few days, they have been sending out text messages to intimidate the victim’s family. They also said that the collectors are all over Klang, the port and Jenjarom."
He pointed out that after the death of his brother, he was not given details of the loan -- his family has no idea how much money was borrowed and how many groups of loan sharks were involved.
It is said that he replied to text messages during his trips to fishing areas for relaxation
Jiang Chengran pointed out that before Huang Weifa committed suicide, he had sent a text message at 1 p.m. and mentioned that he was under pressure at work and was going to the fishing area to relax. During that time they were still exchanging text messages. She lost contact with him after 4 p.m.
He also mentioned he had gone back to work, so she asked his boss for help, and they finally found his car and body at the fishing spot after his boss and his brother went to search.
"He had never mentioned financial problems, but recently he became quieter and withdrawn. We usually eat at home due to control orders [Malaysia’s quarantine measures], so we didn't notice he was having financial problems,” she said.
Huang Weifa had no bad habits and never borrowed money
Huang Weifa’s boss Guo Xiongda said that he had no bad habits and had never borrowed money, and usually had friendly relationships with his customers, although he did mention that he wanted to buy a house and get married, but he could have borrowed from him or his customers instead of going to a loan shark.
"Therefore, when everyone received the news of his death, they were shocked and couldn't believe that this had happened", Guo recounted.
He said that Huang Weifa had been working with him since he was 15 years old, and because of his talent and intelligence, he was promoted to manager after years of work, helping to handle tasks such as receiving orders and shipping from the ironworks, and he earned a good salary, so he should not have had financial worries.
"We hope that those loan sharks will stop bothering his family after already taking his life," said Guo.
Peter Chen (the latter) led Huang Weifa's family to hold a press conference, from left to right Jiang Chengran, Huang Weilian and Huang Weilun.
Last August, he fell for an online investment scam
From information left by the deceased, he began to fall for the online investment scam in August last year and was coerced to borrow 10,000 Malaysian Ringgit from the loan sharks. “I hope everyone can be vigilant, especially young people, so they will not fall into such online investment scams,” he said.
He said that he had assisted his family in reporting the crime to the police and sought assistance from the Selangor Commercial Crime Unit to investigate the above-mentioned scam.
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