Increasing number of commercial crime cases worrying: IGP

KUALA LUMPUR: The increasing number of commercial crime cases is at a worrying stage and tackling it would be the main priority this year, says Inspector-General of police Tan Sri Mohamad Fuzi Harun.
Mohamad Fuzi said Bukit Aman's Commercial Crimes Investigation Department is embarking on a nationwide crackdown on commercial crime to bring down the number of such cases.
"Out of the 28,271 commercial crime CCID cases recorded last year, 6,417 were successfully charged in court or in other words, 24.4% cases were taken to court compared to 17.8% in 2016.
"It is a worrying trend. This year we have recorded 2,333 cases so far," he told reporters after attending Bukit Aman's monthly assembly here today.
Mohamad Fuzi said attention has to be given to money-game investment, online scams and cyber crimes.
"Due to the findings, we formed a special unit to tackle such crimes. This is not a task force but a special unit headed by CCID (Cyber and Enforcement Investigation) principal assistant director SAC Ahmad Noordin Ismail," he added.
He said Bukit Aman had conducted collaborative training with Singapore and Chinese police and is looking forward to having more training sessions with other regional and international countries.
The CCID had initiated several operations in 2017 to tackle white-collar crimes including:
>> "Ops Tiong", an operation to clamp down on African Scams resulted in 1,243 raids and 1,705 suspects nabbed.
>> "Ops Pelican", an operation to tackle Macau scams resulted in 417 raids and 1,239 suspects nabbed.
>> "Ops Vulture" to nab Ah Long syndicates resulted in 2,164 raids and 1,318 suspects nabbed.
>> "Ops Nuri" to combat investment scams resulted in 157 raids and 169 suspects nabbed.
Among the other successes of the department included "Ops Mortgage" which resulted in the arrest of 13 people for cheating, with three charged on Jan 26 for their involvement in a bogus property loan application schemes in which seven financial institutions have fallen prey to the scammers who used forged documents to apply for property financing loans, which have since incurred losses of more than RM10 million.
At the monthly assembly, several CCID personnel were recognised for the efforts in several operations.
Among them was SAC S. Sasikala Devi for her contributions in busting the scam syndicate under "Ops Mortgage".