The Umrah Packages, the Wound-Up Company, and the RM434,250 Cheating Case

A company that has been wound up cannot lawfully carry on business, collect money, or promise to deliver a service. Where a director knows this and continues to take payments anyway, the conduct may amount to cheating.

On 2 September 2026, the Court of Appeal upheld the conviction of a former managing director of a travel company that had ceased to exist. He was convicted on 23 charges of cheating. The charges involved RM434,250 paid by 202 would-be pilgrims for umrah¹ and Egypt pilgrimage packages arranged through the company. However, his sentence was reduced from 10 years to five.

What Happened

Misbahalmunir Omar was the managing director of Raudhah Mawaddah Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd.

Amzari Halim, an umrah consultant and mutawwif (pilgrim guide), collected payments from 202 participants for a pilgrimage package described in the proceedings as “Kembara Mahabbah,” covering umrah and a trip to Egypt.

The individual payments he collected ranged from RM2,000 to RM36,600. They were made across 56 transactions over 23 days, between 2 November 2015 and 28 January 2016, at various locations in Kedah, Johor, and Selangor. The money was deposited into bank accounts belonging to Misbahalmunir, his wife, his relatives, his employees, and companies registered in his family members’ names.

The company’s deception came to light at the airport. When participants gathered at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on 29 and 30 January 2016 for their scheduled departures, they discovered that their flight tickets and itineraries were completely invalid. Most of the victims were senior citizens and tahfiz students, two of whom have since passed away.

Amzari lodged a police report on 30 January 2016.

According to the court’s findings, Amzari was not told that Raudhah Mawaddah had been wound up by an order of the Alor Setar High Court on 14 January 2015 — more than nine months before the first payment was made.

On 8 August 2022, the Sungai Petani Magistrate’s Court found Misbahalmunir guilty on all 23 charges and sentenced him to 10 years’ imprisonment on each charge. The Sungai Petani High Court upheld both the conviction and the sentence on 24 April 2024.

The Charge: Cheating Under Section 420

Misbahalmunir faced 23 counts under Section 420 of the Penal Code, which deals with cheating and dishonestly inducing the delivery of property. The prosecution’s case relies on proving three core legal components:

Cheating. The accused must have cheated within the meaning of Section 415 of the Penal Code. That requires the deception of a person, and a fraudulent or dishonest inducement.

Delivery of property. The person deceived must have been induced to deliver property — to any person, not necessarily to the accused. Where property is delivered, the delivery itself is the loss. The section also covers inducing a person to make, alter, or destroy the whole or any part of a valuable security, or anything signed or sealed and capable of being converted into a valuable security.

Inducement need not be sole or main. It is enough that the deception played some part in the victim’s decision.

The punishment is mandatory imprisonment of not less than one year and not more than ten years, together with whipping. The offender is also liable to a fine.

Whipping under Section 420

Section 420 makes whipping a mandatory part of the sentence. Section 289 of the Criminal Procedure Code, however, provides that certain categories of persons shall not be punishable with whipping. Among them are males whom the court considers to be more than fifty years of age, except where the offender is sentenced to whipping under sections 376, 377C, 377CA, or 377E of the Penal Code.

The reports do not state whether whipping formed part of Misbahalmunir’s sentence.

The Appeal Against Conviction

Misbahalmunir appealed to the Court of Appeal, where a three-member panel comprising Justices Azman Abdullah, Meor Hashimi Abdul Hamid, and Dean Wayne Daly unanimously dismissed the appeal against conviction.

Justice Meor Hashimi, who delivered the grounds, made three key findings.

First, the magistrate’s assessment of credibility was sound. The appellate court re-evaluated the witnesses and found no reason to disturb the findings. A trial judge who has seen and heard a witness is better placed than an appellate court reading a transcript.

Second, the elements of cheating had been proven. The court found the prosecution had proven the elements of cheating under Section 420 — that Misbahalmunir had deceived Amzari into handing over the RM434,250. The deception lay in what was not disclosed: the company had ceased to exist before the payments began.

Third, the conviction was safe. The court found no prejudice to the appellant and no miscarriage of justice.

The Challenge to the Charges

Misbahalmunir argued that the charges against him were defective. The Court of Appeal rejected the argument.

The statutory requirements

Section 152 of the Criminal Procedure Code deals with the form of a charge. A charge must state the offence with which the accused is charged. If the law creating the offence gives it a specific name, the offence may be described by that name alone. If it has no specific name, so much of the definition must be stated as to give the accused notice of the matter. The law and section must also be mentioned in the charge.

Section 153 requires the charge to contain particulars of the time and place of the alleged offence, and of the person against whom or the thing in respect of which it was committed, as are reasonably sufficient to give the accused notice of what he must answer.

The court’s findings

Justice Meor Hashimi said the charges were framed in accordance with the Criminal Procedure Code, contained sufficient particulars, and did not place the appellant at a disadvantage.

He noted that Misbahalmunir had understood the charges he faced and had put forward his defence at trial.

The court also observed that any defects, if present, would have been curable under Section 422 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

Section 422: the curing provision

So far as relevant here, Section 422 provides that no finding, sentence, or order made by a court of competent jurisdiction shall be reversed or altered on account of an error, omission, or irregularity in the complaint, sanction, consent, summons, warrant, charge, judgment, or other proceedings before or during trial — unless the error, omission, or irregularity has occasioned a failure of justice.

The section is headed “Irregularities not to vitiate proceedings.” Its effect is that a technical defect will not overturn a conviction where the substance of the case was properly tried. The test is not whether the charge could have been drafted better, but whether the defect caused a failure of justice.

The Sentence Reduction

The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal against sentence. It reduced the term from 10 years to five years for each charge, and ordered the sentences to run concurrently, beginning 2 September 2026.

The court also issued a warrant of committal. Misbahalmunir had been on bail pending the disposal of his appeal.

When sentences run concurrently, the offender serves them at the same time. In practical terms, the total period of imprisonment is the length of the longest single sentence, not the sum of all of them. Had the 23 sentences been ordered to run consecutively — one after the other — the aggregate would have been far greater. The order for concurrency therefore has a substantial effect on the time actually served.

Practical Takeaways

For consumers booking umrah packages

• Verify that the operator is still in business. A company that has been wound up cannot lawfully trade. If you are unsure, ask for the company’s registration details and check them.
• Be cautious about paying into personal accounts. In this case, payments went into accounts belonging to the director, his relatives, and his employees. A legitimate travel business should ordinarily receive payments through its own business account.
• Get the booking confirmed in writing. Tickets, accommodation, and departure dates should be documented. Verbal assurances are not proof that anything has been arranged.
• Check the flight bookings yourself. In this case, participants only discovered the problem at the airport on the day of departure. A booking reference can usually be verified directly with the airline well before then.

For travel operators

• Do not collect money through personal accounts. Payments into the director’s, relatives’, or employees’ accounts create legal exposure, destroy credibility, and make it harder to distinguish legitimate business from fraud.
• Never take payments for a company that has been wound up. A wound-up company has no legal capacity to carry on business, and continuing to collect money can amount to cheating.
• Keep business and personal funds separate. Collecting customer payments into personal or family accounts creates legal exposure and makes it harder to show that the business was conducted properly.
• Make sure your itineraries and confirmations are accurate. In this case, the court found that modified itineraries had been issued in order to obtain money.

A Closing Thought

Two hundred and two people paid for a journey they believed was arranged. Most were tahfiz students and senior citizens. Two have since died.

This was a case about money taken on behalf of a company that had been wound up more than nine months earlier, by a director who knew it. The sentence was reduced. But the conviction stands, and it settles the principle: a company that no longer exists cannot lawfully take money from anyone.

For would-be pilgrims, the practical lesson is to verify before paying, and to be wary when money moves into private hands. For those who would take it, the lesson is sterner. Concealing the truth about a company’s status is not sharp practice. It is cheating.