Remove advertisement posters on Ah Long - PPIM

KUALA LUMPUR,  Sept 6 (Bernama) -- The authorities have been urged to step up enforcement against loan sharks by  eliminating posters and banners advertising their services and phone numbers to avoid the public falling into their trap.

Malaysian Muslim Consumers Association (PPIM) director of Illegal Money lending Unit, Zharif Johor said the unit had received 11,650 complaints relating to victims having problems with loan sharks since 2015 and the victims were aged between 18 and 70.

“The government has to disable the medium being used by loan sharks to communicate and promote their service by removing all posters that advertise their service and to terminate the telephone numbers displayed, as well as  to catch the culprits,” he said.

He believed that by doing so, it would cripple the loan shark activities as the illegal money lenders did not have proper office and relied on the use of telephone and posters, which were normally displayed at public places,  to advertise their service.

Zharif told this Bernama when appearing as a guest on Bernama News Channel ​​​​​​’s “Ruang Bicara Khas” programme here last night.

,Also present were PPIM head activist Datuk Nadzim Johan and former “ah long”,  Azman Kang, who is now the operations director of the PPIM  Illegal Money lending Unit.

He said most of the victims of illegal money lenders were gamblers and some borrowing money to help friends, buy drugs and for wedding expenses.

Meanwhile, ​​​​​​​Azman, 43,  expressed  regrets having been involved with the “ah long”, saying that he was then in his 20s and was known as ​​​​​​​”Ah Soon Gila” or ‘Mad Ah Soon”.

“It was because I wanted fast and easy money. It happened when a friend borrowed money from a ‘ah long’ and did not pay the loan, but  the ah long came after me, but I was not able to raise the money to pay.

“The amount of repayment was so much, that I then became the ah long,” said Azman, who converted to Islam  in 2003 and joined PPIM in 2015.

-- BERNAMA