KUALA LUMPUR • A Malaysian businessman who borrowed RM13 million (S$4.3 million) from a woman for a business venture had her killed this month when he could not repay the debt, police have said. The man paid two assassins RM60,000 to have Datin Renyce Wong Siew Ling, a real estate agent, killed.

Kuala Lumpur city police chief commissioner Amar Singh told reporters on Thursday that the businessman, the two hitmen and six others have since been detained.

Ms Wong transferred RM5 million and RM8 million in two transactions to the main suspect last year as investments in a ceramics business, but nothing came out of it. She hired a private investigator to track the businessman down.

He retaliated by hiring the hitmen from Perak, said Datuk Singh. "We believe the money came from Ms Wong's husband, who has a business in China," he added.

Police have recovered a Glock 19 pistol used in the shooting and said the gun had been used in three other shooting cases in Perak.

"Those arrested are the planners, middlemen and the shooters. We are looking for another man... he was involved in planning the shooting," Mr Singh told reporters.

Ms Wong, 32, was gunned down by two assailants on a motorcycle while driving her children and maid to lunch on July 6.

Photographs of the crime scene show a black MPV with several bullet holes puncturing the window on the driver's side.

Her daughter, eight, who was in the front passenger seat, was also hit when one gunman fired five bullets at the vehicle, one piercing her intestines in nine places. She is now warded at a medical centre.

Mr Singh said shell casings recovered from the crime scene were a direct match with those taken from the three other shootings in Perak. "The first case is an attempted murder where the victim was shot six times," he said.

In the second case, a victim was shot eight times in front of his home last year. The third was also a case in the same area. "We believe these three cases were drug-related," he said.

THE STAR/ASIA NEWS NETWORK