Living a life of leisure

Elements of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) recently arrested a 55-year-old Malaysian posing as a kidney specialist who reportedly runs a scam bilking money from rich women.

NBI Director Nestor Mantaring said Thavarajah Sandrasegaram, who uses the aliases Shan or Doc, 55, a resident of No. 13 Jln. Kemuja, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia is now at the NBI’s National Capital Region (NCR) detention cell.

Charges of estafa and attempted estafa were filed against Thavarajah before the Davao City Prosecutor’s Office and custody of Thavarajah will be turned over to the Bureau of Immigration (BI).

NBI-NCR Regional Director Ruel Lasala said Thavarajah’s modus operandi includes selecting women who are single, financially well-off and in their 50s through Internet chatting. The NBI refused to disclose the identities of the two complainants in the case.

In February, the suspect befriended a woman by chatting with her over the Internet and introduced himself as a kidney surgeon with connections with the Seattle Baptist Medical Center in Washington. He also claimed he has conducted medical missions for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Kidney Foundation over the last 11 years.

Thavarajah’s modus operandi is to gain the trust and confidence of his victims and tell them he is working on a medicine for kidney ailments or gastritis that will supposedly yield billions of pesos in revenue once the medicine is marketed.

He tells his intended victims that he needs an initial P1 million in funding for the research.

On March 11, Thavarajah met with one victim and received P1 million from her. After a couple of weeks, Thavarajah asked for P600,000 more, then left for Singapore to “finalize” a six-month stay in the Philippines.

The woman decided to check Thavarajah’s credentials, learned that he is not connected to the US hospital and decided to seek NBI assistance.

Early this month, Thavarajah arranged to meet the woman at the Mergrande Beach Resort in Dumoy, Davao City, where she was to give him P400,000 – the third installment of her “investment.” On May 22, the NBI caught the Malaysian national receiving P400,000 worth of marked money.

Lasala said this was not the first time that Thravarajah duped a Filipina. He recalled that, in October 2005, Thavarajah met a woman from Biñan, Laguna over the Internet and introduced himself as a US doctor who could help her secure a US visa for P240,000. The woman paid Thavarajah the money but never received her visa. 

The NBI investigators said the suspect was a retired security officer in Singapore – not a doctor, as he claimed. They also found that the two medical diplomas he presented to his victims – allegedly from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and University of Malaya – were fake.

“We do not know how many Filipino women he has victimized and we are encouraging others to come out,” Lasala said.

Since he frequently travels to other countries, he added, “We would also furnish the Interpol Division of the NBI with a copy of our report so they can communicate with their counterparts if there were other complainants in other parts of the world.” – Evelyn Macairan