KUALA LUMPUR: Gullible Malaysians are helping scammers have a field day by enabling them to rake in a whopping multi-billion ringgit each year.
The takings are so profitable that scammers have set up bases at business centres and plush apartments, running their activities in an office-like atmosphere.
Thousands of Malaysians have fallen victims, including professionals such as teachers, bankers, lawyers and doctors, who were fleeced by such syndicates that pull off what is known as the “Macau Scam”.
In these scams, telephone calls are made by scammers who disguise as officers of police, customs department, courts and many other enforcement agencies.
Yesterday, Deputy Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani revealed shocking figures of the losses victims had suffered.
He said that in the first nine months of this year, about RM400 million was lost to scammers in about 14,000 cases that were reported nationwide.
In 2018, some 23,788 cases were reported with losses totalling RM2.8 billion, Acryl Sani said, adding that the losses year last year, which saw 28,508 cases, amounted to RM2.5 billion.
Almost 32,000 mule bank accounts were traced to the cases in 2018 and 2019.
There are those who “lease” out their bank accounts to scammers for a pittance to bridge the crooks and their victims.
Tens of thousand of these mule bank accounts have been used by scammers to keep their identities unknown and to receive their ill-gotten gains.
“The public should be wary of the scam. No enforcement agency, be it the police, customs or Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission make calls to ask one to transfer their money into bank accounts or over a road accident or for money-laundering.
Calls are only made for official appointments, in an office of any of these enforcement agencies. It is a pity that many have lost their hard-earned savings.
Acryl Sani said there are a high number of cheating cases involving online purchases as well and he urged the public to come forward and lodge police reports even if the losses are small. By doing so investigators can obtain the bank account numbers used by the scammers and blacklist it under the commercial crime investigation department’s “semakmule” application or its website http://ccid.rmp.gov.my/semakmule.
