Cyber criminals may now target youths, IGP says

KUALA LUMPUR – Police expect online scam syndicates targets are targeting youth groups and students to trick them into receiving loans and becoming mule for account syndicate in the future.

Inspector-General of Police Tan Sri Acryl Sani Abdullah Sani said the syndicates will continue with the same modus operandi but they would shift their target to youths instead.

"To curb the crimes from being more rampant, police had cooperated with banking institutions to ensure investigations mainly those involving mule accounts could be solved quickly," he said in a speech at the opening of the Financial Crimes: Check Before You Get Cheated virtual exhibition on Bank Negara Malaysia Museum and Art Gallery's Facebook today.

Acryl Sani said the cyber criminals were slick and creative to exploit technological advancement and came out with many new modus operandi which led to the rise in commercial crime cases.

"Other than that, the public's awareness regarding cybercrimes is still on a moderate level and has been identified as one of the reasons for the increase in such criminal cases.

"We see the need for awareness to be spread towards the public so they can avoid themselves from falling victim to such crimes," he said.

Acryl Sani said the commercial crimes cases had been showing an upwards trend over the last three years.

"As many as 12,092 cases with losses estimated around RM414.8 million were recorded from January to July.

“Last year recorded as much as 20,701 cases with the losses estimated around RM560.8 million.

"13,703 cases were recorded with losses of RM539 million in 2019, while 2020 had 17,227 cases were recorded with losses of RM511.2 million," he said.

Acryl Sani said from the duration of 2019 to July, 33,147 suspects of cybercrimes had been caught and 22,196 criminal cases online had been successfully accused in court.

The police’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) identified seven main types of crimes which were online purchases, fake loans, online investments, Macau scams, African scams, email bypasses and fake short messaging systems (SMS).

"Other than the Macau scam and love scam, other cybercrime activities identified were fake loan syndicates and the 'ah long' using social media like Facebook, WhatsApp, Wechat, Instagram and such to air their advertisements of loans with a guaranteed quick and easy approval.

"The syndicate will conduct business with the victim online and ask for several documents and then would deceive the victim to make multiple process, legal, insurance and other payments," he said.

He said the CCID had prepared a few platforms to make it easy for the public to interact with police for any questions, complaints or to channel information regarding commercial crimes.

"Among the platforms set was CCID Infoline, where many could send messages using the WhatsApp application to 013-2111222 and channel any questions, information or anything relating to commercial crimes cases," he said.