Conman hoodwinks woman on Facebook

A female resident of Kuala Lumpur lost $363,000 to a con artist on Facebook, reports Malaysian newspaper The Star.

The con artist claimed to be a British citizen and asked for the victim's bank account details in order to cash in $1.4 million from his contact with Petronas, Malaysia's national oil company. He told the victim that he could not afford to pay the stamp duty charges and insurance fees, which were required to get his agreement approved.

Later, the victim approached the police after realizing that she had been duped. Six male suspects were arrested. Of these, two were Nigerians, two were Bangladeshis and two were Malaysians.

So far investigators have only managed to recover about $5,000 in cash, 18 ATM cards, seven cell phones and a laptop.

Reports of frauds using phishing messages are common, but social networking sites now seem to be the new breeding ground for scams of the sort. On sites like Facebook, users are more active and readily share personal information.