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A 34-year-old man from Bukit Mertajam, Malaysia was arrested on suspicion of insurance fraud, after authorities discovered he had been filing police reports for lost or stolen mobile phones every year.
The man, who worked as a marketing manager, filed yearly reports that his gadgets, mostly iPhones, were either lost or stolen, in order to claim compensation from insurance companies, a report by Free Malaysia Today said. He then would sell the “lost” phones online to make even more money.
In his most recent police report, the suspect claimed that he was mugged by two motorcycle-riding men outside his mother-in-law’s house, and that they made away with his iPhone XS Max, which costs MYR5,399 (US$1,289), as well as an iPad Pro, a MacBook Pro laptop, and other valuables.
“However, when we looked into his background, we found his prior police reports, which all had a similar pattern,” said Central Seberang Perai police chief Nik Ros Nik Abdul Hamid. “Every report showed he had lost an iPhone.”
After interrogation, the man admitted to the fraud, and that he had been engaging in the scam since 2013.
When police searched the house belonging to the suspect’s mother-in-law, they found there the MacBook Pro he had previously reported as stolen.
