Digging Up The Dirt, Ox Style

Okay. I know I've just posted, but several memories shook loose as I was writing the previous entry, and I think I'll share them with you. Please, feel free to berate me (or call me whatever you want) after you read this, and the only defense I can offer is that I was naive and trusting.

The year was 1999. I was in my third and final year of university, and the pressure was on to finish up my thesis. Being locked in the house in front of the PC most of the time, my only escape was getting online and (guess what?) hitting the IRC channels in between my 12-13 hour long stints at work. At the moment I'd already had several regular IRC friends and had even met up with some of them, so it was nothing new when I chatted with this girl who claimed to be in Damansara. But first, a word of warning: at this time I was firmly ensconced in Bangi, and my knowledge of KL was rudimentary to say the least. As the conversation went on, I kind of got the idea that this girl was rather well off, and when she offered to give me a call I didn't think twice about giving her my number.

We got along great on the phone, and I didn't think anything of it until a couple days later when she called me, asking if it would be alright if her "pet" brother (yes, I was a fool) wanted to hang out with me and my friends. When we met, he seemed like a nice enough guy, pleasant and very worldly. As our friendship progressed, he told us that he was trying to save this girl (whom we'll call Anne) from an unscrupulous public figure intent on keeping her as his mistress (man I'm blushing as I type this). Every once in awhile Anne would call, and we'd get closer on the phone, even though we never actually met.

Anyway, to make a long story short (details I'll share over coffee or Chocz) this "brother" whom we'll call Bob, started getting into all sorts of trouble. He'd disappear for a couple days during which Anne would call and inquire as to what happened to him, and then reappear with bruises all over his body. The bruises would be caused by the Datuk's henchmen trying to force Anne's location from him. Yes, we swallowed it whole. Hook, line and sinker.

Bob was never stingy with money, though, and he said he survived mainly through his trust fund, provided by his late father. He did impress upon us that he was trying to pay off some lawyers to save Anne (again, us nincompoops believed him) and after awhile he started getting into financial difficulties. Being the sympathetic starving students we were, we quickly helped him secure a job and even a flat near mine in Kajang. The financial woes got so bad he started borrowing, and for some reason all his excuses made sense to our ears (of course, Anne's repeated calls and promises she'd pay all of us back helped as well). In the end he'd borrowed about RM 3,500 from all of us.

Skip forward some more chapters, and we finally found out that we were being conned (through a series of mysterious coincidences). Bob had disappeared by then, and we found out through a network of mutual friends (and a lot of detective work) that he was active in Melawati, this time using Anne to dupe another unsuspecting guy. We realised we needed to act fast. Acting on the tip, we estimated the time he'd be back in Melawati and arranged for him to meet the potential victim at a warung around midnight. I had a friend wait in the car, his pedal on the accelerator. As Bob got down from the cab he was in, he caught sight of me and walked briskly towards a nearby phone booth.

He was dialing rapidly as I approached, and I gently put my arm on his shoulder. I said "Bob, you need to come with me." By that time, my friend had brought the car around so that it was directly behind the booth, and we whisked him back to Kajang that same night.

6 hours later, he was gone (after we'd filed a police report that proved fruitless). Whatever grievances we'd had we had gotten rid of during the night, and we ransacked his flat (with the police's cooperation), where we found the following:

*Several folders worth of pictures of naked men, and gay porn
*Several gay porn VCDs
*A diary (which I'll come to later)
*Letters from men, addressed to various girls. Some even had their naked pictures attached.

If you're still wondering what it all means, here's the gist of it. There was no Anne. There never was any of the other girls, either. Bob was a born impersonator of voices, and he was the talent behind Anne's pleadings for help. During his stint as a conman, Bob assumed the identities of several girls, drew up detailed profiles of their fictional lives, and used them to get money off unsuspecting, gullible guys like me and my friends. His life was long and read like something out of a paperback thriller, and all this was found in the diary (we had to have live proof of his impersonations, and he wonderfully cooperated that night to satisfy ourselves).

In any event, the police couldn't help (since they weren't sure how to file the charges) but I'll leave you to fill in the blanks yourselves. The Ox has had a long day.