Police advised housewives today to beware of a bogus kidnapping syndicate which has collected over RM100,000 in "ransom" so far.

Sentul police chief ACP Zakaria Pagan said that housewives in their 50s were the target in the cases that had been reported since last month, with a maximum ransom of RM30,000 demanded in one instance.

He said the syndicate operators usually called their victim using an unknown number and claimed that they were holding a member of the victim's family hostage.

They then threaten to harm the hostage unless the ransom was "dropped" at a certain location, Zakaria told reporters after handing over 30 motorcycles to the First Response Unit in Kuala Lumpur.

He regretted that the victims reported to the police only after they had paid the "ransom" and found out that there had been no kidnapping.

In the latest case, a 55-year-old housewife lost RM5,000 after she was tricked into believing that her son, in his 30s, had been assaulted and kidnapped.

She received a second call two days later and told to put the money at a garbage disposal area of a restaurant in Kepong, Zakaria said.

When the woman returned home and found her son unharmed, she immediately filed a report with the police.

- Bernama