Three families disown sons with gambling addictions

KUALA LUMPUR: After constantly being harassed and humiliated by loan sharks or Ah Long, three families have made the extreme decision of disowning their children who took the loans and defaulted on payments.

A 50-year-old businesswoman, who only wanted to be known as Kong from Ayer Tawar, Perak said her 23-year-old son had taken loans amounting to hundreds of thousands and lost it all to online gambling.

She said that she settled her son’s debts of RM500,000 in May 2022 and advised him to repent and seek employment in Singapore.

In June this year, Kong began receiving threats from loan sharks before her house and that of her in-laws were splashed with red paint two weeks ago. The loan sharks also threatened to burn down their houses.

Kong gave in to the loan shark’s demands and paid over RM21,000 but they demanded another RM5,000, claiming the payment was late by 10 minutes.

When she refused, her shop was splashed with red paint two days later.

In another case in Johor Baru, the family of a 48-year-old housewife, who did not want to be named, suffered similar harassment from loan sharks when her 21-year-old son borrowed money, also to lose it gambling online.

Beautician Rico Loh, 27, said her brother often borrowed money from family members and took loans from about 20 Ah Long.

She said her family paid RM150,000 to settle debts with loan sharks but just days later, her brother took another loan for RM70,000 from the Ah Long.

In a third case, a 71-year-old retiree who only wanted to be known as Lee said he had to give up his Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings to settle RM500,000 in loans his 37-year-old son took from almost 50 loan sharks since 2019, also to feed a gambling addiction.

All three families turned up at the MCA Public Services and Complaints Department at Wisma MCA here on Monday (Aug 7) making the announcement to disown their sons.

The department’s head Datuk Seri Michael Chong said the affected families were left with no other choices but to disown their sons due to the constant harassment from Ah Longs.

“These are not just loan sharks but extortionists. They lure people into taking loans by advertising in social media platforms and only give out a fraction of the amount sought.

“Later, they demand the full sum and resort to violence for repayment. The thugs are runners who are paid RM400 for each job they carry out.” he said.

Chong said his department has handled about 199 such cases, involving a total loan amount of RM18.7mil, this year.

He said 53 of those involved were women and 80% of the borrowers are Chinese.