Macau Scam syndicates love playing ‘cops’ the most
Public continues to fall for Macau Scam despite warnings
SHAH ALAM: Macau scammers in Selangor seem to favour posing as police, Bank Negara and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) officials.
Between January and July this year, a total of 334 cases were reported where scammers posed as police personnel and duped victims of RM14.76mil, making this the most popular modus operandi in the state.
In second place, the suspects posed as Bank Negara officials in 100 cases and scammed victims of RM8.16mil.
Posing as MACC officials came in third with seven cases involving losses of RM720,900.
A script sighted by The Star showed just how the scammers work on scaring their victims into coughing up their life savings.
The victim would first receive a recorded message informing him or her about a warning that they were being investigated for money laundering or other suspicious activities and would direct them to the department involved in investigating the matter if they press a button via the phone call.
The “officer” would then inform the victim that they usually only investigate big cases and ask if they have been involved in any large money transactions.
If the victim says they were never involved in such activity, the scammer would then ask for the victims full name and MyKad number to check their system.
The scammer then says that there was a case being investigated and informs them that an account has been frozen involving drugs and money laundering.
If the victim continues to deny involvement, the scammer would read out made-up facts of the case to try to make the victim panic.
They may also resort to lying to the victim that a subpoena has been issued for them to appear in court for trial and that failing to attend may lead to their arrest.
They would then tell the victim that there may have been a mistake and maybe a family member was instead involved and connect them to another suspect posing as a Bukit Aman officer.
The “Bukit Aman” police officer would then tell the victim that there was an arrest warrant and warrant to freeze bank accounts issued.
The suspect will then ask the victim to give them all their banking details in order to check if there was any suspicious activity,
They would then tell the victim to transfer these funds into another bank account (belonging to the syndicate) in order to avoid the funds from being frozen.
SHAH ALAM: You would expect the public will wise up as the police have issued numerous warnings about the Macau Scam. Instead of going down, losses actually increased by a whopping RM9mil over the last couple of weeks – and this is in Selangor alone.
Two weeks ago, Selangor police announced that Macau Scam losses hit an all-time high of RM16.63mil.
The losses, which should have gone down after police urged the public to be cautious over the phone, jumped to RM25.7mil.
Selangor police chief Comm Datuk Mazlan Mansor said he was baffled as to how the figure rose so quickly even after the recent warning.
“I don’t know what else to say,” he told reporters at the police headquarters here yesterday.
However, following that press conference, he said police received a tip-off about suspicious activity at a bungalow in Petaling Jaya.
“We monitored the place for two days before launching a raid last week and arrested 30 suspects.
“We seized a script believed to be used to dupe victims, a piece of
paper containing bank account numbers, five tablet devices and 37 mobile phones,” he said, adding three of the syndicate’s masterminds were among the 30 arrested.
Comm Mazlan said the masterminds, aged between 29 and 38, had been previously caught for white-collar crime, drug offences as well as other criminal activities.
“We believe the syndicate operated a call centre-styled operation,
where they would dupe victims into believing they were speaking to Malaysian Anti- Corruption Commission and Bukit Aman AntiMoney Laundering investigators.
“One of the victims, a lecturer, lost close to RM500,000,” he said, adding the syndicate paid its members commission-based salaries.
Comm Mazlan revealed that the lure of money was one of the reasons such syndicates never faced a shortage of willing workers.
“They would train them on how to conduct phone calls.
“We are now combing through the phones we seized to ascertain just how many people have fallen victim to this syndicate,” he said.
The term “Macau Scam” was coined because it is believed that it originated from Macau or that the first victims came from there. This has never been confirmed.
Macau Scam often starts with a phone call from someone pretending to be an officer from a bank, 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 settle the payment or face “dire consequences”.
These unsuspecting victims will then be asked to make payments to get them off the hook.
These syndicates would also pay drug addicts and the unemployed for using their bank accounts to receive payments from victims.