The website quoting the Facebook page “Jawatan Kosong Kerajaan” post as the source for its reporting, said that the “Royal Malaysia police force has put up a recruitment ad using the image of Singaporean actor Elvin Ng decked out in Singapore Police Force outfit.” The Facebook page has since changed its notification status for the picture and it is not view-able by the public.
The article was originally titled, “Royal M’sia police recruitment ad uses S’porean actor Elvin Ng. M’sia Boleh’.
After the Malaysian Police flagged the article and took the publication to task, the website changed the title to “Hoax royal M’sia police recruitment ad uses S’porean actor Elvin Ng photo. M’sia Boleh’, and updated the article with a sentence saying: ‘Royal Malaysian Police said the recruitment ad is a hoax.’
The title of the original article is however still view-able in their Twiiter account.
Besides publishing the salary scales of the police officers as mentioned in the hoax ad, mothership.sg also highlighted that the featured actor played the role of a lazy cop in a hit Mediacorp police drama series C.L.I.F. 3 – insinuating that the Malaysian Police were lazy.
PDRM corporate communications head Asmawati Ahmad in confirming with Malaysian publication Free Malaysia Today (FMT) that the idea of using a Singaporean actor in any of its advertisements was absolutely nonsensical, said PDRM had always used its own personnel in such ads.
“That is very uncalled for. They should have called us and verified the details before writing such an article.”
PDRM has not commenced investigations on the incident but are monitoring the fake recruitment ad closely.