Part 3: It is not just illegal immigrants, Sabah's story

Given the response I have had for parts 1 and and part 2 of my conversations with Peter, a former legal interpreter - I am bringing you part 3 which is an equally interesting story because it is slightly different.

Limpeh: Now Peter, you've mentioned that it is not just illegal immigrants from China, you've dealt with some Malaysians before, can we talk about them? Can we have a Malaysian angle for today's story?

Plenty of organized crime going on in London.

Peter: Sure. There are Chinese-Malaysians who do speak Mandarin or Cantonese but not English.

Limpeh: Yeah, I can confirm that. My dad's like that - he does speak Malay very well though.

Peter: Well, let's start with this woman I dealt with - she is from the state of Sabah so let's call her Sabah in this story okay? Oh what she went through... She speaks Mandarin quite well but very little English. She is from a small village in rural Sabah, she has never lived in a big city like KL or Singapore and was really quite ignorant. She went on honeymoon with her husband, also a Chinese-Malaysian from the same small town in Sabah, to Genting Highlands. She wasn't interested in gambling so she went for long walks in the gardens, exploring the hotel's facilities, the amusement park, the shopping mall whilst her husband spent most of his time gambling away in the casino.

Her husband then phoned her excitedly, telling her that they had been invited to have a drink with some new friends he made and they had asked her along. So Sabah joined them for this drink, she didn't remember much about it apart from the fact that there was plenty of good food on the table - so she just ate the food whilst the men talked about gambling. She remembered one of the men there - let's call him 'Tai Kor' (Cantonese for 'big brother'), he was asking her a lot of questions about her hometown in Sabah, how long they have been married, about her background and she was puzzled - like, why is Tai Kor interested in me? I don't know how to gamble. I am just a small town girl from Sabah. Her huaband was then been invited to a 'private game' with a bunch of high rollers outside the casino, in a hotel room. She was tired so she went back to her room to rest whilst her husband went to this 'private game' with Tai Kor. Hours late, he returned and told her that he had won them a trip to London. Tai Kor wagered a bet: he said that if Sabah's husband won the game, he would take them both on a trip to London to gamble at a London casino with him. For Sabah and her husband, London was like a dream come true - they couldn't believe that they had won something like that. Going to Genting was already a big deal for her - but London? It was totally unreal for her.

So a few weeks later, off they went to London with Tai Kor where they were picked up and put up in a hotel in Kings Cross. They were then taken to a casino in the Chinatown area catering mostly for Chinese clients.

Limpeh: Yes I know the ones, full of Chinese gamblers, virtually no white people, with signs in Chinese.

Peter: Sabah was not interested in gambling, so she walked around Leicester Square and Covent Garden, taking photos whilst her husband gambled the night away with Tai Kor. They agreed to meet back at the entrance of the casino a few hours later. When he emerged from the casino, he told her that he had lost every penny he had. When he had lost the money, Tai Kor told him, "don't worry, I will lend you some more money, just take it when pay me back when you win it back later. Have confidence in your skills. You are a very good gambler, you just need luck." This happened a few times and Sabah's husband kept losing and ended up losing over £12,000 (about S$24,800 or RM 65,300) in one night, he owed Tai Kor more money than he made in a year. It was money that he could never repay.

Whilst Sabah was sightseeing, her husband lost a fortune in the casino.

Limpeh: You think the game was rigged to make sure he lost and owed that money?

Peter: Perhaps, we don't know. She didn't know. What we do know is that he wasn't forced to borrow that money, he gave in to greed and took the money when it was offered despite knowing that it was not a gift, it was like a loan from a loan shark. Alarm bells should have been ringing  but he was too naive and greedy. That's why they chose him.

Limpeh: You mean the whole thing was a set up?

Peter: Totally. Winning a trip to London for 2 in a private game in someone's hotel  room instead of in the casino itself? Like, how often does that kind of thing happen? Get real.

Limpeh: What happened next? How did they repay this huge debt?

Sabah's husband gave in to greed.

Peter: Tai Kor had friends with him in the casino and they took Sabah and her husband to this house in North London and held there for hours. They beat up Sabah's husband, threatened to gang rape Sabah and threaten to sell her to a brothel that very night to repay the £12,000 debt. They were absolutely terrified in this ordeal. These were two small town Malaysians from Sabah - jet lagged after a very long flight, in a city they didn't know, big language barrier and absolutely terrified. You see, Sabah looked sweet and innocent. She didn't quite have the looks that would make her a big earner at a brothel, she was rather large, I mean she was quite big you see, by normal standards she...

Limpeh: You mean she was fat.

Peter: Yeah, well, yes, fat. She was quite fat indeed. That saved her from being sold to a brothel. Then Tai Kor told her that she had the right look for an operation his friend was running, but Sabah's husband didn't look right. He looked too "dirty" - not innocent enough, like if he stepped into a shop, the security guard would immediately keep an eye on him, but Sabah looked sweet, innocent - even 'cute'. No one would suspect her. She was perfect.

Sabah was the target, not her husband.

So they held Sabah's husband at this house in North London - Sabah was told that he would be held there until she worked off his debt. If she tried to run away or call the police, they would cut off his fingers and ears and blind him and she would collect his body in small pieces. But if she did as she was told, she could earn the money in a week or two and they would then be released and they could then return to Malaysia. Tai Kor then told her to say goodbye to her husband and if she was good, if she did as she was told, she would see him again soon. Sabah was taken by car to another house somewhere in North London by her "handler" where she met this older woman from China, who was equally traumatized and scared. Let's call this Chinese woman 'Dajie' (Mandarin for 'big sister') as that was how Sabah referred to her and they were to pose as rich Chinese tourists shopping in London.

Limpeh: So Dajie was also coerced into doing this, the same way Sabah was?

Peter: Correct. It was also another gambling debt story, Dajie's husband was also held by the same gang. The scam was this: both Dajie and Sabah looked 'clean' - respectable, innocent, sweet, fat, prosperous; like your typical tourist from China who has plenty of money to spend and neither spoke enough English, so they were completely lost without their handlers. These two were driven to exclusive boutiques in town, given fake credit cards and told to buy expensive goods: handbags, watches, jewelry, laptops, designer sunglasses, perfume - as long as it was expensive, they bought it. They worked all day, until the shops shut. They never had a day off. They never went to the same shop twice, they were driven around by a handler who gave them a shopping list of things to buy at each shop.

Sabah and Dajie were taken shopping in some of London's most expensive boutiques.

Limpeh: So all these expensive items were bought with fake credit cards?

Peter: Correct. It is part of a bigger scam - there are people in China stealing credit card numbers in China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore, cloning them and creating clones of these credit cards. If they tried to use them in the Far East, these would be flagged up a lot more easily as they are trained to spot a fake card locally. Whereas in a place like London, these shops deal with tourists from all over the world who show up with credit cards they have never seen before. A lot of these shops are so keen to make a sale to a big spender on holiday, so they usually don't check the credit cards as carefully - they just assume, "oh it's a foreign bank, but it's a credit card". Especially if the store is crowded and there's a queue, even if there is a problem, Sabah was instructed to get angry, kick up a fuss, throw a big tantrum on the spot, shout at the staff in Chinese and she would usually get her way or at least storm out of the shop, if she didn't get her way, before they arouse any suspicion.

Limpeh: Really? Is it that easy?

Peter: These fake cards are really good - whoever made the cloned cards knew exactly how to make these cards acceptable, the transaction would go through at the point of sale but when the shop's bank tries to claim the money from the credit card company, that's often when the problem is spotted. You see, there's a time lag between you making a purchase with your credit card and the transaction actually going through the system. It may be a few hours, it may be 24 hours and if it is an international transaction, it may even be 48 hours. The banks have in place systems to spot irregular patterns, like a purchase being made in another country out of the blue- so usually these cards can only be used once. You won't believe just how wide spread credit card fraud is in the world, it's a huge problem.

Sabah was part of a very high tech fraud network.

Sabah and Dajie worked for their handler for about eight weeks, each time Sabah asked to see her husband, she was denied but was allowed to speak to him by mobile phone for a few minutes. He was not allowed to tell Sabah where he was. Apparently Sabah and Dajie got really good at their 'job' and when they managed to get everything on their shopping list, their handler would reward them with a good meal at a Chinese restaurant. If they failed to get the right items or if the transaction was refused, they would be made to go hungry or even beaten. They slept in different houses and flats on different nights of the week - this was to confuse them because they didn't want the police to be able to trace them in case either of them escaped. All Sabah could remember were these rows and rows of houses in London suburbs which all looked the same to her and she couldn't remember the name of the roads.

Limpeh: So how did she get caught by the authorities?

Peter: They made a mistake. They used the same card twice - it was a card that had already been used a few days ago, that transaction went through the first time but the credit card company then picked up that a crime had been committed. The second time they tried to use the card, they were in a big department store on Oxford Street and these department stores have pretty tough security - mostly to deal with shoplifters but they are used for any kind of crime committed on the premises of the store. If they were in a small shop, they may have just been able to run out if things went wrong - but they were like on the third floor of a department store and these security guards escorted both Sabah and Dajie to a holding room whilst the police were called. The game was up for them.

Some London department stores employ a lot of security staff.

There was already an ongoing police investigation into Chinese credit card fraud - so when they were caught, the police immediately took the opportunity to question these two. Sabah broke down and cried - confessed everything. She was no hardcore criminal - she was a frightened woman forced into committing crimes to save her husband. She thought the police would be merciful and understanding, she thought she would be pardoned for her crimes given the circumstances she had found herself in. Most of all, she wanted them to find and rescue her husband. Nonetheless, she had committed crimes. Knowingly buying goods with a fake credit card is a crime, it is fraud, it is illegal.

Limpeh: What happened next?

Peter: Sabah was held in prison, awaiting trial. She was assigned a lawyer and that's where I came into the picture - as the interpreter, as Sabah spoke a little English but not enough. She was highly traumatized, she was extremely worried about her husband. But given the estimated value of the goods she had purchased with Dajie, she was not going to get away with a slap on the wrist. There was never any doubt about the fact that she was indeed guilty.

Limpeh: How much was it worth? The stuff she bought?

Peter: Given that she couldn't remember the stores she was driven to, it was estimated that they bought up a few thousands pounds worth of goods a day - she worked for them for over eight weeks, you do the maths. It varied, some days she bought more, some days less. Oh they bought a lot of expensive stuff in those eight weeks.

Limpeh: Surely she would have worked off her husband's debt at that rate? He owed them £12,000 or so?

Peter: It was never about the debt - they held him to ransom and got her to work for them. He was a hostage. If she wasn't caught, they would have continued to make her work for as long as possible. She was making such good money for these people - why would they let her go? They were never going to let her go, never. What impressed me was her loyalty - she loved her husband, she never blamed him, never questioned the fact that he got her into this mess, it was his greed and his gambling - it was all his fault that she was forced to commit crimes to save him and it landed her in a British prison. But she never ever directed her anger at her husband, I think she saw him as a victim too.

Limpeh: Yeah, she must really love him, for all his faults.

British justice wasn't kind to Sabah.

Limpeh: Did they ever find her husband?

Peter: No. They tried. But Sabah could not remember the route of the car from the casino to the house in North London. She remembered the car passing by Kings Cross station, heading north - that was her only landmark. Beyond Kings Cross, north London was a blur of suburbia that all looked the same to her. It was late, she was tired, she was afraid - there was no way she could remember where she was taken even if she wasn't blindfolded.

Limpeh: I know what you mean about North London suburbia. I've lived in Camden and Hendon back in the 1990s.

The police had driven her around many streets of North London but to no avail, she simply could not identify where her husband was first taken - in any case, in all probability, he would have been moved a few times already. They couldn't trace Tai Kor either - the Malaysian police were unfortunately not very forthcoming to assist in a crime that was committed in London. The Malaysian high commission in London were not that helpful either as their default response was, "we cannot interfere with an ongoing police investigation - you have to talk to the local authorities about this case."

Limpeh: So he had been kidnapped, effectively?

Peter: Yes, that's right. They also tried to help her identify the houses where she spent her nights, but again, she was able to narrow it down to some neighbourhoods where she spotted certain landmarks, like a petrol station, a church, a bridge.. She remembered this clock tower in Crouch End quite clearly, you know the one... but they would deliberately confuse her by taking a different route every time so she was unable to remember the precise street.

Sabah was bombared with questions she couldn't answer.

Limpeh: Where do you think her husband is today?

Peter: We have no idea. We don't know.

Limpeh: What is your guess?

Peter: What would the Chinese mafia do with a man like that? I have no idea. Hard labour if he is lucky? Will they kill him now that he has no use to them? After all, they kept him alive to keep Sabah working, he was a hostage but after Sabah was caught...  If he escaped, he could run to the police. Well. Sabah's case was frustrating as she remembered so little about the places in North London where she was held nor could she provide the information the police needed to track down the people who held her. Like, she couldn't remember much about the car she was driven around in - she could give the colour and the brand of the car, but not the license plate number, it didn't occur to her to memorize it. Like I said, she was sweet, innocent but not too bright. That's why it made her vulnerable.

Limpeh: What about the casino then? It all started with a casino in Chinatown when they first came to London.

Was this Chinatown casino involved in this crime?

Peter: The police went there to question the staff but the casino claimed no knowledge of this Malaysian Tai Kor operating in their casino - loads of Chinese clients pass through their doors everyday and if people were to make private transactions between themselves, such as lending or borrowing money, that is not monitored or controlled by the casino management. How can they? They claimed they were totally innocent, not involved in any way and even offered CCTV footage of the night in question - but as the casino was very crowded that night, Sabah failed to identify anyone with certainty from the CCTV footage. There was no way the police could have proven any wrongdoing on the part of the casino. Who knows, maybe they were truly innocent and not involved.

Limpeh: Do you think the casino is innocent?

Peter: It is impossible to say. Maybe they are aware of such gangs operating on their premises, but if these Chinese mafia gangs are indeed operating in the casino, then the casino would probably be very afraid of them and would be force to either cooperate with the gangs or simply turn a blind eye to their activities. You don't mess with these Chinese mafia gangs, they control Chinatown, they are dangerous. People are very afraid of them. It's not just the stuff you see in Hong Kong gangster movies you know - these mafia gangs exist, they are totally real.

London Chinatown in the winter

Limpeh: What happened next?

Peter: The judge was merciful, he gave her a very light sentence and she served only half of it before she was up for parole and then put on a plane back to Malaysia the moment she was released. All that time, her parents thought that she was on a super long holiday adventure in Europe and they have absolutely no idea that she is in jail.

Limpeh: Surely there was an investigation for the kidnap of Sabah's husband?

Peter: Yes. There is. But I have no idea how far they got as they have virtually no leads - neither Sabah nor Dajie could give any kind of useful information that would have led the police to the people who coerced them into crime.

Limpeh: That's unbelievable.

Peter: You will understand if you ever met Sabah - she is not exactly intelligent...

Limpeh: You're saying she's stupid.

Peter: Okay, she is naive, she speaks very little English, she is easily confused, she goes into a panic easily when stressed out and she cries a lot. Like seriously, she cried every time I met her. That's how she responses to stress- she just cries like a baby rather than think of a solution. She is very child-like, she is not the kind of person who would think on the spot and figure out how to get out of a dangerous situation - she just doesn't have the brains to do so I'm afraid. She just cries, like a young child. That is precisely why they targeted her and used her - she was perfect as she could be controlled. A more intelligent person would not have been as easily manipulated. These mafia gangs know exactly what kind of person they need for their crimes - that was why Sabah was recruited from Malaysia to do this.

Limpeh: Wow. And I thought only brain surgeons and rocket scientists were the kind of foreign talents who got headhunted from Asia to Europe. And then there are people like Sabah, this small town girl from East Malaysia...

Peter: After she was released from jail, she was deported back to Malaysia. She was assured that there was an ongoing investigation into the disappearance of her husband, but with no leads, the case was going nowhere. I have no idea what happened next after she returned to Malaysia. I don't keep in touch with people I encounter through work.

How much blame can you put on Sabah for getting herself into trouble?

Limpeh: Just a technicality here - but Sabah and her husband were not illegal immigrants, they were tourists in London, is that correct? They flew into London with valid tourist visas, yes?

Peter: Correct. But she committed a crime whilst in the UK, so regardless of whether she was a local, a tourist or an illegal immigrant, she would have to face the consequences of her crimes and go to jail.

Limpeh: I feel so bad for Sabah. I really feel sorry for her. It's clear who the real criminals are, but the police only managed to catch the pawns like Sabah and 'big sister' who are manipulated by the real criminals. In the meantime, the police have not caught the mafia masterminds, they have not found Sabah's husband... Even if they send the pawns at the bottom of the food chain to jail, those at the top of the food chain will just find someone else vulnerable like Sabah to exploit and continue with their criminal activities. It makes me so angry... like, it's just not fair, you know?

The police didn't catch the masterminds behind this crime.

Peter: These Chinese mafia organizations are smart, extremely smart. They know what they are doing, they know exactly what kind of crimes they need to commit to make money, what kind of people they can exploit. For example, the handler would never set foot in the shop himself - and if Sabah and Dajie got arrested, he would have ample opportunity to drive away quickly. He knew how to stay out of harm's way whilst putting others in danger.

Limpeh: What did they do with all these expensive luxury goods they bought with the fake credit cards?

Peter: We don't know - but in another similar case where they did catch someone higher up the food chain, they traced the goods to a specialist Chinese tourist shop. You see, some tourists from places like China and Japan don't speak any English - so even though they want to buy British or European designer goods, they want to shop in a place where all the signs are in Chinese or Japanese, all the staff speak Chinese or Japanese fluently and they wouldn't have to utter even a word of English. Yeah, tourists like that exists and these shops may not offer the same shopping experience as Harrods or Selfridges but it is an English-free zone where only Mandarin or Japanese is spoken. The general public wouldn't visit places like that - this is usually a small-ish shop in the middle of some industrial estate or suburban area - the tourists would arrive there by coach to shop there.

Peter felt really bad for Sabah who was a victim. 

Limpeh: Yeah I actually saw one such shop in Salzburg, Austria - a Chinese tourist shop, no German or English allowed in the shop, it is a Chinese shop catering specifically for Chinese tourists only. It looked pretty grim!

Peter: Now in this other case, the goods bought illegally on the black market were resold at this shop, which was stocked with all kinds of designer goods that appealed to your typical China tourist. The goods were genuine alright, there were no fakes in there, but some of the goods were effectively stolen or procured through fraud. This shop was making a huge profit because they were able to obtain these genuine designer goods on the black market for a fraction of what they cost and they were then selling it on to Chinese tourists at inflated prices. We're talking about designer handbags, watches, perfumes, sunglasses, jewelry items... Not everything in that shop was illegally obtained - some of it was legit, so it gave the shop some semblance of normality and respectability. The shop was handling stolen goods and was closed down, arrests were made and again, I was wheeled in as the interpreter for that case - this was all unrelated to Sabah's case, but it just goes to show that this is a big industry that has been around for quite a while.

Limpeh: Do you think that the police turn a blind eye to crimes within the Chinese community?

How closely do the police monitor the crimes in Chinatown London?

Peter: No. It has nothing to do with that - the police are trying as hard as they can but they are up against the Chinese mafia who are extremely good at what they do. You're not dealing with some petty criminals here, they are not amateurs - the Chinese mafia take organized crime to a whole new level and the British police are up against a formidable foe. Can more be done? Sure, more can be done... Always. But give the British police some credit. They have some success in Sabah's case and if she had been able to remember a bit more about the people who coerced her, who knows? You won't believe the number of times she just broke down and cried non-stop when we tried to get more information out of her, she just cried and cried and said, "I don't know! I don't know! 我不知道!"

Limpeh: Maybe she was pretending not to remember, was she lying, as in the case of Man One and Smoky the kid.

Peter: Not her. She was not smart enough to lie. She was definitely telling the truth when she said she didn't know or couldn't remember the details. Sabah couldn't lie - that's just the person she is you know? Trust me, I know when someone is lying, I can tell. It is not rocket science, you don't need a lie detector.

Peter can tell when someone is lying.

Limpeh: Well, I hope Sabah finds some way to get her life back to normal in Malaysia.

Peter: Yes, she was a victim.

Limpeh: That was some story. Thank you Peter.

That's it for this story. It feels strange to say "I hope you like these stories" because I am writing about true stories of great human suffering, of people like Sabah who went through so much hardship through no fault of her own. But then again, if my blog can bring these stories to a wider audience, well I think that is a good thing. I will bring you Part 4 soon. Thanks for reading, terima kasih. Let me know your thoughts, please leave a comment below.