By Lisa Goh

PETALING JAYA, MALAYSIA: Like many others who have had to deal with loan sharks, a woman says she has had enough of the menace after her estranged husband threatened to abduct their son.

Wong, an accounts clerk, claimed that her estranged husband, a businessman in his early 40s, had been borrowing money from loan sharks for years, always with the excuse that he needed money for his business.

In the past three years, she had helped pay off his RM100,000(S$42 050) debts.

But his latest act of trying to "kidnap" his own son from school in order to make her sign the letter to mortgage their apartment was the last straw.

"We separated in December last year and I moved out with the children. In September this year, he called me, demanding that I pay the loan shark debts but I refused.

"He also threatened to take away the children," she told a press conference called by MCA Public Services and Complaints Department head Datuk Michael Chong here yesterday.

"He threatened to take our son from school, and one day he actually did it, but fortunately the headmaster stopped him," she said.

Wong has since lodged two police reports.

In another case, hawker Lim Sak Choy, 67, wants his son Lim Shan Yuan, 30, to come home.

Shan Yuan has been missing since Oct 22 to avoid loan sharks who are after him. His family does not know whether he is still alive since he has not kept in touch.

"We've already paid off his RM20,000 debt in July. I have no more money.

"Since he disappeared, five loan sharks have come to collect his debts. One even threatened to burn down our house, rape our daughter, and beat him up," Sak Choy said.

"Just please come home to sort out the matter, and we'll try to work something out," said Sak Choy, who has diabetes and high blood pressure.

Chong said that from January till Dec 3, he had received 593 loan shark cases worth RM54mil.

"In future, I will not hesitate to publish the photos of habitual debtors.

"They have only caused pain and suffering to their families," he said.