Sadly, we also have plenty of Malaysians who are not making the country proud.

Korean 'Money Heist'?

South Korean police are reportedly hunting down a Malaysian after a huge load of cash went missing from a casino earlier this week.

According to The Wall Street Journal, the Jeju Shinhwa World, one of the largest resorts in the popular tourist island of Jeju, lodged a report with the authorities earlier this week regarding the missing money, said to be worth around 14 billion won (RM52 million).

The money had reportedly gone missing from the resort's Landing Casino, a popular spot for those who want to participate in high-stakes card games.

The report stated that the casino has asked South Korean police to look for a female employee from Malaysia, who, according to the casino, had been in charge of the cash.

The unidentified female, who is in her 50s, had reportedly gone on vacation at the end of December, and she has yet to return to work.

South Korean news site Yonhap News Agency reported that the police have retrieved security camera footage from the casino, but just like what usually happens in a bank heist movie, they found that footage taken at around the time of the suspected heist had been erased.

The police believed that the operation could likely involve more than one person, as the missing cash would be too heavy for a single person to carry.

The largest-denomination bill in South Korea is the 50,000-won (RM184) note, and if the money that went missing from the casino was all in 50,000-won notes, the haul would have comprised of 291,200 individual notes.

The haul itself would weigh around 280kg, and unless the woman is the world weight-lifting champion, it would be impossible for her to transport the cash out of the casino alone.

At the moment, the police believe that the money could still be on the island as it would be a monstrous task to move such a large amount of cash out of the country via airports or seaports.

The hunt for the mysterious Malaysian woman is still ongoing, the report said.

Malaysian boleh?

This story reminds us of another story involving yet another Malaysian woman's crime spree in the United States a couple of years ago.

Cheah Siew Im, 59, was a Malaysia-born con artist who managed to steal six identities and several fortunes in the last twenty years.

Her SOP was simple: she would identify herself as someone else, usually as her roommates or manicurists, and use it to scam people from Virginia to California.

In fact, she reportedly entered the US from Malaysia on a visitor’s visa under the name of Lee Sau Hoong in 2001. And you guessed it; even the identity was a stolen one. It reportedly belongs to a homemaker Kuala Lumpur, and she has never met Cheah in real life.

According to The Washington Post, Cheah committed her first crime back in 2004, when she was found guilty of identity theft, auto theft and burglary after she stole her landlord’s name and driving licence to buy a BMW.

Then, in 2011, she was arrested in California for writing a fake cheque of USD350,000 (RM1.46mil) under the name 'Claudia Lee' to buy back a diamond ring she pawned for USD100,000 (RM417,650).

In 2012, she identified herself as Teresa Cheah, and with that, she stole the identity of one of her roommates. Using her identity, she reportedly opened a bank account and cashed out her life insurance policy. She also sold two cars belonging to her roommate and bought a new one.

Later that year, she stole the identity of her roommate Cindy Lin, and Lin reportedly started incurring debts on credit cards she had never applied for and racking up traffic summonses in cars she never drove.

Cheah's gig was up when Lin made a police report in 2016 after she received a speeding ticket with a body camera image showing Cheah behind the wheel of a 2017 Porsche.

Cheah reportedly used Lin's driving license when she was pulled over for speeding in Ferraris and Porsches registered to various men.

She pleaded guilty when charged for identity theft and fraud in an Alexandria federal court in Virginia, and she was sentenced to a jail term of 51 months on 4 October 2019.