Macau scam: Sibu records RM2.2 million in losses year-to-date
SIBU: Over RM2.2 million has been reported lost to Macau scams this year to date, reveals district police chief ACP Stanley Jonathan Ringgit.
According to him, the losses involved 33 local victims, from a total of 178 reports received by police.
“Out of the 178 cases involving Macau scams reported to police so far this year, 33 involved losses of RM2.217 million. The other cases did not involve financial losses, but were reported to police for investigation,” he told reporters after leading a monthly parade at Sibu police headquarters yesterday.
According to Stanley, the majority of those falling victim to Macau scams are Chinese and the scammers who contacted their victims via mobile phones also spoke Mandarin.
He added that based on investigations, the calls were done over the Internet – meaning that the suspects could be operating from anywhere around the world.
“They also use third-party bank accounts to avoid detection by the authorities. Action has been taken so far against those whose accounts were used for such crimes. But we cannot recover all the (victims’) money.” Stanley reminded the public against responding to or entertaining calls from unknown numbers.
“Among the scammers’ modus operandi is to pose as officers of sorts and tell the targeted victims that their bank accounts have been frozen because they have been used for illegal activities.
“They (scammers) would then ‘advise’ the victims to transfer their money into a certain account number to avoid not being able to access their funds,” he said. Once the transfer takes place, the caller would ‘disappear’ – the victims are unable to contact them anymore.
Meanwhile in his speech earlier, Stanley called upon his men to enhance their discipline, practise transparency and act according to the law when discharging their duties. On the crime rate, he said Sibu registered a drop of 11 cases – 522 to 511 – from January to September this year versus the corresponding period last year.