In 2007, Che Intan Mat Zain noticed she had trouble walking. She would trip and fall even though nothing was barring her way.

“I didn’t go to the hospital because I was afraid,” she told Bernama.

Instead, she opted for a traditional Malay witch doctor or bomoh, who specialised in treating supernatural ailments, to cure her.

In the three years that ensued, the demands for ingredients to cure her mobility issues – caused by a hantu (ghost) hanging around her legs and causing her to trip – became more and more outlandish and the cost grew astronomical.

Some of the items the bomoh asked for included the death shroud of a murder victim killed on a Tuesday and the heart of a songbird who died of heartbreak. And if she could not get the items, the witch doctor would offer to sell them to her for thousands of ringgit.

What she got instead was...