Macau Scam: Scammers impersonate Health Ministry officers
KUALA LUMPUR - First they introduce themselves as officers from the Health Ministry and tell victims that they had purchased medicines against the ministry’s procedure.
This, Kuala Lumpur Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) head Assistant Commissioner Mohd Mahidisham Ishak said was one of the new modus operandi of the Macau scam fraud syndicate which was discovered this year.
He said victims would receive a call from the scammer telling them that the call would be connected to the police before explaining that they were ‘involved’ in a money laundering activity.
"The call will then be connected to 'Bank Negara Malaysia’.
“Subsequently, the victim will be instructed to hand over all of their banking details.
“They will then be informed that their Tabung Haji account had to be frozen due to the large amount of money in it,” he told Sinar Harian on Friday.
He said the syndicate would also ask for the TAC number from the victim before transferring the money into the syndicate’s bank account.
He said the victims would only realise they had been deceived after calling the Tabung Haji customer service.
Commenting on the statistics of Macau scam cases in Kuala Lumpur, Mahidisham said in 2020, there were a total of 3,055 cases which involved losses of RM126.9 million while last year, there were 3,985 cases which involved losses totalling RM140.5 million.
"As of April this year, 1,373 cases were recorded involving losses of RM50.5 million," he said.
He added that people should not take the anti-scam campaigns conducted by the police for granted and that they should share this information to others.
"The public should not disregard the police’s advice to prevent more people from falling prey to these scammers.
“The KL CCID has launched an e-Poster to make it easier for the public to obtain information on the latest modus operandi on cases involving online fraud.
"So far, the e-Poster has been displayed at 120 public locations including at automatic teller machines (ATMs), shopping malls and it will also be displayed at places of worship soon,” he said.
He reminded people to contact the police station or the CCID Response Center at 03-26101559/1599 if they receive any suspicious phone calls.
