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IPOH: Police have paralyzed a Macau scam syndicate with the arrest of 22 locals, including three women in a house here.
Bukit Aman’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department Director Comm Datuk Zainuddin Yaacob said the group, aged 20 to 46, has been active since 2018.
He said they were arrested on Tuesday (December 29) during a raid following a nine-hour surveillance operation starting at 7 a.m.
Comm Zainuddin said the group is believed to be involved in misleading people over the phone by posing as Telekom Malaysia customer service officers, as well as officers from the Terengganu police contingent headquarters.
“They obtain information about their victims from the ‘dark web’, or through other applications such as ‘MYEG’, ‘JPJ Portal’ and ‘SPR Portal’.
“So far, 29 cheating cases are linked to this group, where in total, the victims lost around RM360,000,” he told a press conference at the Perak police headquarters here.
Comm Zainuddin added that this union has been active since April 2018, where some of the group’s members had received a week-long training in Cambodia.
He said the group had been operating in Laos from mid-2018 to March of this year.
“At the end of May, this group returned to Malaysia due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“They were then housed in a transit house in September in Menglembu, near here, before operating in a call center in Taiping until November.
“They then returned to Ipoh, and had been operating there until their arrest yesterday,” he added.
The case, he said, is being investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating, and the 22 have been detained as of Friday (January 1).
Comm Zainuddin advised the public not to be a victim of such scams and try to avoid answering phone calls from unknown numbers.
He said that in the face of any uncertainty, the public should communicate directly with the agencies involved.
“Never reveal your personal information, such as bank account, TAC or PIN numbers to a third party.
“To ensure that the account number provided by the caller is not involved in any cheating case, it is important to check the details via http://ccid.rmp.gov.my/semakmule/,” he added.
The term “Macau scam” was coined because it is believed that it originated in Macau or that the first victims came from there. This has never been confirmed.
The scam often begins with a phone call from someone posing as a bank official, government agency, or debt collector.
The scammer will then claim that the potential victim owes money or has an unpaid fine, often with a very short window of less than an hour, to clear the payment or face “dire consequences.”
These unsuspecting victims will be asked to make payments to get out of trouble.
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