Cops, MCMC spend over 5 hours at Scrut Auto, take over influencer's FB

Summary

• A joint police and MCMC team spend over five hours at Scrut Auto’s workshop executing a search warrant against founder Aliff Ahmad.

• The team takes Aliff’s mobile phone, seeking to access his Facebook account, which led to log-in issues delaying the process until late at night.

• MCMC eventually takes over Aliff’s Facebook account after he assisted them in logging in, and his lawyer states he is ready to face charges.

A joint team of police and MCMC officers spent over five hours yesterday at the Scrut Auto vehicle inspection workshop in Kuala Lumpur, executing a search warrant against its founder and social media influencer Aliff Ahmad.

According to Aliff’s lawyer, Haziq Aizuddin Subhi, the team arrived at the premises around 5pm and left close to 11pm with his client in tow to the Pudu district police headquarters.

“He (Aliff) handed over his mobile phone at around 5pm. They wanted to access his Facebook account, but there were ‘log-in issues’ that dragged the situation until close to midnight,” Haziq told Malaysiakini.

On April 25, Aliff was summoned for questioning at the MCMC headquarters in Cyberjaya, over his offer to conduct an in-depth background check on PKR vice-president Nurul Izzah Anwar, through a system known as “Scrut Analytica”.

Scrut Analytica is primarily used to assist used car buyers in conducting background checks of past vehicle owners, but Aliff had also promoted the system as a way to compile public profiles of prominent politicians.

On the current probe, Haziq said his client was taken to the police headquarters, where they spent close to another two hours, and eventually, MCMC took over access to the “Aliff Ahmad” Facebook account.

“We left the police headquarters at around 12.45am. While in there, we heard them say that if they can’t log in to the account, they can’t complete investigations.

“If they can’t complete investigations, they can’t submit the probe papers to the Attorney-General’s Chambers. Finally, Aliff helped them to log in to his Facebook," said Haziq.

Haziq added that his client had, in the latest round of questioning, maintained that he is ready to face charges in court.

Aliff had previously cried intimidation by MCMC after an investigating team visited his house to serve another notice, when he was not around, and was later informed of further investigations on four other separate posts.

Mobile phone seized

In a statement, without naming the individual, the MCMC revealed that it had seized a mobile phone to facilitate investigations into a Facebook account believed to contain grossly offensive elements related to race, religion and royalty.

MCMC said the Kuala Lumpur Magistrate’s Court authorised the search with a warrant under Section 247 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.

“A data preservation session and statement recording were also carried out at the Pudu police station on May 9,” the statement added.

The probe is being carried out under Section 233 of the CMA 1998, which covers offences involving the transmission of obscene, indecent, false, menacing or offensive content intending to annoy, abuse, threaten or harass others.

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