In real life, Malaysian robber Aman Shah – dubbed the “one-cent thief” – may never have been caught if he hadn’t gone on TV talking about his love of luxury cars. The talk show caught the attention of his boss, and his capture, trial and imprisonment in the early 1990s is now the stuff of local criminal legend.

30+ years later, the one-time lowly bank clerk’s story has inspired an eight-episode TV drama series for which media platform Astro and production unit Astro Shaw have the highest hopes. 

The Astro Original drama, "One Cent Thief", is about a young one-time computer hacker turned lowly wage slave, told constantly that he is lucky to have a job and forced to keep at it so that he can provide for his ill father. His efforts are stretched to breaking point when he finds out about his father’s debts to loan sharks. Iman Shah (played by Syafiq Kyle) hatches a plan to steal one cent from each account at the bank where he works to finance his father’s medical costs and debts. Then he goes just a step too far... 

"One Cent Thief" has been infused with many of the questions asked during the pandemic, says Kuala Lumpur-based creator and showrunner, Alfie Palermo. Questions such as: How important is money? And what constitutes happiness? 

“Everyone was hard hit” by the pandemic and under pressure, Palermo says. “I was interested in finding out what leads a person to the point where they are pushed to stealing,” he adds. 

It’s a question he would like audiences to take away with them. “Faced with the choice, how far would we go? It’s relevant for all of us,” he says. 

Palermo says the TV version inspired by the real-life drama is less about the crime than a human story involving wealth, motivation and the triumph of money over all else, including happiness. 

In crafting his central character, Palermo changed Shah from an ugly show off into someone more relatable. He also set the show in today’s world, with all the issues of data and cyber security that didn’t exist in the 1990s.

Palermo’s Shah is kept under constant pressure, facing a multitude of problems and needing to make fast decisions. “These may not be the right decisions and/or solutions but they need to be made and they have to be solved at that moment,” Palermo says. Most of Shah’s decisions lead him into an even deeper hole. 

Palermo did not sit down with Shah, who has long been a free man, when he was writing the series. “One Cent Thief is loosely inspired by his story. It’s not an autobiography,” he says.

What does Palermo like most about the finished series? The combo of hacking and cyber crime and a character driven by unconditional love for his father, he says. “He’s doing it all for his father. That’s the emotional anchor... what makes it relatable to the audience,” he says. Plus the series is fast-paced and commercial. 

Directed by Ariff Zulkarnain ("Dukun Diva") and produced with Independent Pictures, "One Cent Thief" debuted across four Astro channels – Astro Ria (Malay), Primetime (English), Astro Vinmeen (Tamil) and Astro Shuang Xing (Chinese) – earlier this month. New episodes are released to Astro Go/On Demand subscribers the week before the linear broadcasts.

Palermo says the series targets a broad audience across Malaysia’s race and language groups. “We’re trying to get everyone’s attention,” he says. 

That’s more difficult than it used to be. Malaysia is awash with international streaming services and premium series, and competition is fierce. 

Although the production budget has not been disclosed, Palermo says premium drama ambitions for "One Cent Thief" mean the series cost more than the regular domestic drama. It had to. “In this day and age, where you see a lot of premium shows in the OTT space, we need to be able to create product that stands out in terms of quality,” he says.