Compiled by IYLIA MARSYA ISKANDAR, C. ARUNO and R. ARAVINTHAN

       A GROUP of swindlers pretending to be police officers stole RM150,000 from a woman in Negri Sembilan by convincing her to leave her bank ATM card under a tree, reported Sin Chew Daily.

       The woman, a 55-year-old housewife whose surname is Yu, said she received a phone call from a supposed delivery company claiming that she was a suspect in a crime.

       The call was then transferred to one Mr Tan claiming to be from a police station in Sabah, who said that her identity card was found among the personal belongings of someone arrested for attempting to post a parcel containing illegal goods.

       In a bid to prove her innocence, Yu provided the caller with all her details and followed instructions to transfer all the money in her fixed deposit accounts and Employees’ Provident Fund account to her bank account.

       “The ‘police’ told me if I wanted to prove my innocence, I must transfer all my fixed deposit savings to my bank account and place my ATM card under a tree behind my father’s house.

       “They claimed that the court will send someone to collect it for the police to continue with their investigation, otherwise I would have to be arrested,” she said.

       Yu complied and placed her ATM card under the tree at 11am on May 24.

       She began to realise something was amiss when she did not receive any updates from the “police” by May 30 and was unable to get in touch with “Mr Tan”.

       It was later revealed that between May 24 and 28, the scammers stole more than RM150,000 from her account by making 44 withdrawals.

       Yu made a police report at the Jalan Campbell police station on June 1.

       > Malaysian singer Michael Wong claims that the biggest challenge of his 27-year music career was performing his latest song in his Hakka mother tongue, reported Sin Chew Daily.

       The 51-year-old from Ipoh released My Hometown Heaven and Earth on May 28 and joked that the recording process was “self-torture”.

       “I became dizzy the moment I received the lyrics.” Not only were they in Hakka, he said, but he also “had to sing in classical Chinese that was written into verses – a whole new level of difficulty for me!”

       Wong, however, is no novice in the Hakka dialect as he speaks it and has acted in Hakka dramas.

       His father was considered a Hakka language teacher back home.

       Wong, who is based in Taiwan, said he grew closer to his father while practising Hakka with him over the phone for the song.

       Wong said his father had predicted that the song would be a hit among fans.

       “Classical Chinese is hard, but I think this song is good and will become popular!” Wong’s father reportedly said.

       The song currently serves as the main theme for Moonlight Blade Mobile, a 3D martial-arts multiplayer online role-playing game from Tencent Games.

       Wong, who started his music career in the 1990s, was nominated in the Best Male Mandarin Singer category in the 1997 Golden Melody Awards.

       He is best known for his song Fairy Tale which was released in 2005.

       > King of Mandopop Jay Chou’s newborn daughter was revealed to have been named Jacinda after photos of her upcoming full moon party were shared on Instagram, Sin Chew Daily also reported.

       Chou’s wife, actress-model Hannah Quinlivan, posted a row of boxed gifts meant for guests attending the party on Instagram on May 31.

       The box lids were shown to be emblazoned with the initials JH with each box containing a card thanking everyone for attending Jacinda’s party.

       The above articles are compiled from the vernacular newspapers (Bahasa Malaysia, Chinese and Tamil dailies). As such, stories are grouped according to the respective language/medium. Where a paragraph begins with a >, it denotes a separate news item.