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Jakarta Post

Migrant worker swindled out of millions by Fadli Zon imposter

Migrant workers transfer money home at Candra Remittance on Sugar Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong in this file photo

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Tue, December 22, 2015 Published on Dec. 22, 2015 Published on 2015-12-22T12:17:59+07:00

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Migrant workers transfer money home at Candra Remittance on Sugar Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong in this file photo. (JP/M. Fanani) Migrant workers transfer money home at Candra Remittance on Sugar Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong in this file photo. (JP/M. Fanani) (JP/M. Fanani)

Migrant workers transfer money home at Candra Remittance on Sugar Street, Causeway Bay, Hong Kong in this file photo. (JP/M. Fanani)

Banjirah, an Indonesian migrant worker in Hong Kong, said she had been cheated out of Rp 59 million (US$4,319) by a man who sounded like acting House of Representatives speaker Fadli Zon.

Banjirah said she believed the person she was talking to was the Gerindra Party politician.

"I believed it was Fadli because it sounded like him. He also flaunted photos of him with Prabowo [Gerindra chief patron]," she told tempo.co newsportal on Sunday.

The Purworejo, Central Java native explained that she initially met a man supposedly named Herlambang through Facebook. Herlambang gave her a phone number of a man claiming to be Fadli.

Banjirah said the man offered her shares that he said would pay double profits and instructed her to transfer money to him for investment.

"He told me there were some good shares. He told me to transfer money and he would handle everything," she said.

The man instructed Banjirah to transfer money to an account, which she did twice '€“ Rp 34 million and Rp 25 million '€“ in February.

The man promised to pay her a share of the profit by December. She did not hear from him again and as of Dec. 8 has no longer been reachable at the phone number she had for him.

She became suspicious and tried to reach the acting speaker at the House and at his residence, but to no avail.

Acting speaker Fadli has denied that he tricked an Indonesian female worker named Banjirah.

"It was not me. It is definitely fraud," he told tempo.co on Monday. (rin)(+)

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