GEORGE TOWN: The 25-year-old man who posed as a police officer, conned women into having sex with him and then extorted them for money has been identified as a Community Policing and Rela member.

The authority cards seized by the police following his arrest were verified to be genuine.

George Town OCPD Asst Comm Mior Faridalathrash Wahid said the suspect was a former inmate of the Henry Gurney School in Malacca.

“We nabbed him at a coffee shop near his house in Paya Terubong on Saturday following a tip-off.

“We then inspected his house and found a police officer’s uniform bearing the rank of a probationary inspector, two toy guns, a pair of handcuffs and a walkie talkie.

“He has since admitted to impersonating one ‘Insp Vijay’ to flirt with women and get them into bed,” he told a press conference at the district police headquarters in Patani Road yesterday,

Police also confiscated RM1,205, four handphones, a tablet computer and several pawn shop receipts.

ACP Mior Faridalathrash added that the suspect’s modus operandi was to “hunt” for victims via a social messaging app and flirt with them.

After managing to have intercourse with the women, he would blackmail the women by threatening to upload their sex video which he secretly recorded.

He said police believed the suspect had used the same tactic to cheat at least five more women of more than RM20,000 over the past two months.

The latest victim was a 21-year-old nurse who resorted to pawning her mother’s gold necklace for RM10,000 to pay the suspect.

The victim lodged a police report about the matter after being confronted by her mother.

ACP Mior Faridalathrash said there could be more victims and urged them to come forward, adding that the case was being investigated as impersonating a public servant, extortion and unlawful possession of police article under Section 170 and Section 384 of the Penal Code, and Section 89(a) of the Police Act 1967 respectively.