Police said today that the suspect in an alleged RM2.3 million travel scam has been held in custody for 42 days without being charged due to the number of reports lodged against her.

In a statement, Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Amar Singh explained that a total of 136 reports were lodged against the suspect's travel company by victims from all over the country.

“Since early March 2018, we received 136 police reports from the public who fell victim to a travel package scam offered by Dulcet Travel and Tours Sdn Bhd.

“This resulted in total losses of RM2,249,317.00,” he said.

Amar added that the suspect was arrested to aid investigations because she was a director at Dulcet Travel and Tours.

She was also a signatory to the bank account into which victims deposited their money, and had been detected to have withdrawn money from the same account, he said.

Thus, Amar said that police needed to keep her in remand to probe all the police reports lodged against her.

“We will propose to charge her soon,” he added.

The suspect's lawyer, Rajesh Nagarajan (photo), previously told Malaysiakini that multiple police reports should not allow the police to break the usual four-day remand rule, especially when it concerned the same case.

Rather than a “chain remand,” he had urged police to either charge or release her.

“If we don't do anything, she will be in police lockup for a minimum of six months. That is already like serving a sentence, but without being sentenced by a court of law,” he had said.

Rajesh alleged that his client was manipulated by an individual who promised her monthly salary of RM2,000 to be the company's official director, despite her having no part in any of its operations.