Why are blood-sucking illegal and licenced Ah Longs protected?

Why are blood-sucking illegal and licenced Ah Longs protected?

By Chua Jui Meng
 

READING theSun’s report titled ‘Loan cost butcher house, hand and ear’ (report reproduced below) made my blood boil.

Malaysia is not a Third World country but our crooks and the lack of action of government enforcement agencies is surely turning it into one.

You read many cases of the criminal and evil deeds of illegal moneylenders or loan sharks, popularly known to Malaysians as Ah Longs.

Now you also read about licenced moneylenders behaving the same – resorting to cheating, violence and dismembering of limbs to recover their loans.

Yes. Those who turn to Ah Longs for loans are unthinking desperados in need of fast cash but that is another story. The failure of such desperados to settle their dues is also another matter in such illegal deals.

But, such inhumane blood-suckers must not remain unpunished after committing such violence and cruelty. Their growing criminality cannot be condoned any further by Malaysians.

I personally have yet to come across a newspaper report of an Ah Long being charged and convicted.

Are the police and other enforcement agencies protecting the Alongs? We need a clear answer from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).

Ah Longs have pasted and distributed tens of thousands of notices nationwide to make public their contact numbers to solicit borrowers who actually become victims.

Are our authorities blind?

The police and other enforcement agencies don’t know who they are? Who are the officers protecting them?

Why are the Home Ministry and its minister Hishammuddin Hussein maintaining such an elegance silence?

Who are under the protection of the Home Ministry and Hishammuddin Hussein?

Doesn’t Hishammuddin know families are being tormented, living in misery and fear?

There have also been cases of Ah Long-related deaths.

I have been told of a case in Johor where a man died after he was allegedly forced to drink weed killer by an Ah Long’s debt collectors.

Who are the murderers? Have they been arrested and charged?

Who are the police protecting?

Now that licenced moneylenders are also behaving like thugs, I do hope former MCA president Ong Ka Ting can sleep well with this type of violence being perpetrated.

After all, it was Ong the Housing and Local Government Minister who licenced the cruel crooks.

Loan costs butcher house, hand and ear

Posted on 15 October 2012 - 05:30am

Charles Ramendran
newsdesk@thesundaily.com

KUALA LUMPUR (Oct 15, 2012): Had mutton seller A. Muthukrishnan known that a loan he took from a licensed moneylender four years ago would cost him a thumb, a ear, his job and even his house, he would have chosen to rough it through his financial hardship and be a happier man today.

Crippled and having to rely on his wife for simple daily tasks such as using the toilet, the 44-year-old father of three is in a quandary after being evicted from his Selayang house last week.

"I borrowed RM50,000, but lost my house which I bought for RM200,000 in 1997 and is currently valued at RM500,000," he told theSun.

Muthukrishnan, who operated a mutton stall in Selayang, took a RM50,000 loan from a licensed moneylender in October 2008. He said the moneylender agreed to give him the loan on the condition a caveat be placed on his house as collateral.

He agreed and signed several documents, a few which he claimed were blank papers given to him by the moneylender.

"Little did I know that the documents and blank papers I had signed would be turned into a letter of authorisation meant for the sale of my house which was under a loan with a bank," he said.

While continuing to pay his housing loan, he said he made regular instalment repayments to the moneylender. However, about 15 months later, he received a letter from the bank informing him that his house had been sold to the moneylender based on a letter of authorisation.

Then on April 23 last year, he was accosted by four men on his way to work at about 3am.

"They slashed me. They grabbed my right hand, sawed off my thumb and then held my head and cut off my ear and told me they needed to show it as proof to their boss that they had done their job."