KUALA LUMPUR, July 31 ― An executive with a well know oil firm here has become the latest victim in yet another case of ‘Macau scam’, as victims lost a shocking total of RM14 million this year.
Kuala Lumpur police chief Datuk Seri Mazlan Lazim said the 47-year-old woman received a call on January 16 from a suspect, claiming to be a Customs officer.
She was told that she had an outstanding of RM16,000 unpaid Goods and Services Tax (GST) payment, and was wanted by Kedah police for several criminal cases.
The suspect then transferred the call to a number posing as the “Kedah police headquarters”, where several men claiming to be policemen told her that she will be brought to court for a drug and money laundering case and that her account will be frozen.
The victim, who panicked upon hearing all this, asked the suspect for advice, with the suspect then advising her to transfer all her money from her account to another account belonging to a man, where the money can be secured.
The victim without giving it much thought immediately transferred RM10,500 from her account.
After that, she was unable to contact them back and realised that she has been scammed.
Mazlan said the modus operandi used by the syndicate was by targeting people who have never heard about such scams and also through “spoofing calls”.
Spoofing is a practice of causing the telephone network to indicate to the receiver that the originator of the call is a station other than the true originating station.
“The syndicate will target layman who is unsure about how GST payments work, the moment the suspect sense that the victims have panicked they will somehow convince them to transfer the money to their account.
“They also make spoofing calls look legitimate as the real police headquarters numbers will appear, and when the victims return the calls to verify, the end callers are genuine police officers from actual police stations,” he told reporters at the Kuala Lumpur police headquarters.
Following investigations on the executive's case, on July 24, police arrested four Taiwanese men from a condominium in Kuchai Lama and found 56 ATM cards, several handphones, internet routers, laptops and phones.
Mazlan said the unit was used as a collection centre and with their arrest police believe they have solved 24 cases with losses reported to be RM887,168.78.
“We are still looking for the 34 -year-old man who is the owner of the house and we believe he was the 'pointman' who has been assisting the suspects.
“The suspects rented the house for RM3,000 and the calls to the victims were made from various places in and outside of Malaysia,” he said.
Mazlan advised members of the public to immediately contact the police in future and not to fall prey to such suspicious calls, especially when it involves a huge sum of money.
The ‘Macau scam’ has seen a rise in cases compared to last year's statistics in Kuala Lumpur.
From January to July this year a total of 208 cases were reported compared to 2017 where during the same period 197 cases were reported.
