KUALA LUMPUR: A businessman facing a RM13 million debt allegedly hired two hitmen to gun down the woman who was shot dead in a blatant attack in Taman OUG earlier this month. He paid the two men RM60,000 to have Datin Renyce Wong Siew Ling killed.
City police chief Comm Datuk Amar Singh said initial investigations showed that the businessman paid the money to order the hit on the real estate agent.
The businessman and the two hitmen were among eight people, aged between 26 and 54, arrested in multiple swoops in the city and Perak on Tuesday.
Others arrested were the businessman’s wife, a restaurant owner and his wife along with two tow truck drivers.
Wong, he said, transferred RM5mil and RM8mil in two transactions to the main suspect in 2015 to be invested in a ceramics business but nothing came out of it.
She then hired a private investigator to track the businessman down, and he retaliated by hiring the hitmen from Perak, said Comm Amar.
“We believe the money came from Wong’s husband, who has a business in China,” he said.
Hired guns: The scene of the shooting that claimed Wong’s life. — Bernama
Comm Amar said they had seized the Glock 19 pistol used in the shooting and confirmed that it has been used in three other shooting cases in Perak as well.
“Those arrested are the planners, middlemen and the shooters. We are looking for another man – the last suspect. He was involved in planning the shooting,” Comm Amar told reporters here yesterday.
Wong, 32, was gunned down by two assailants on a motorcycle while driving her children and maid to lunch at about 2.30pm on the first day of Hari Raya.
Her daughter, who was in the front passenger seat, was also hit when the gunmen fired five bullets at the Toyota Vellfire, one piercing her intestines in nine places.
The girl is now conscious and in stable condition. She is warded at the Universiti Malaya Medical Centre.
On speculation that Wong’s husband was involved in a Ponzi scheme, Comm Amar said police were still looking into the matter.
“The business transaction involved bringing in a very large sum of money.
“I cannot say for certain if it was money laundering but let us get to the bottom of the matter,” he said, adding that police would investigate where and how the husband had obtained such a large amount.
He said so far, no money had been seized or recovered.
Comm Amar said six shell casings recovered from the crime scene in Taman OUG were a direct match with those taken from three other shootings in Perak.
“The first case is an attempted murder where the victim was shot six times in Chemor.
The second case was a victim shot eight times in front of his home in Sungai Siput Utara last year. The third was also a case in the same area.
“We believe these three cases were drug-related,” he said.
Asked on the possibility that the two hitmen were part of a larger syndicate of hired killers, Comm Amar said police were also looking into the possibility.