KUALA LUMPUR: Despite constant reminders and alerts about online scams, many victims are still losing millions of ringgit to these syndicates.
City police chief Comm Datuk Azmi Abu Kassim said there were still people who were easily deceived.
“In most cases, victims are often promised lucrative offers and sweet promises by the syndicates, but they do not realize it.
“There was one case where a victim was asked if they had ever heard of such a case of fraud and they simply replied that they had never been given information on such cases,” he said in his speech to officiate the city police town hall discussion on the threat of scammers to the society.
Universiti Malaya (UM) deputy vice-chancellor for development Prof Ir Dr Abdul Aziz Abdul Rahman acted as the moderator while the three panel members were Esecurity and Privacy Channel (ESPC) managing director and editor-in-chief colonel (Rt) Datuk Dr Husin Jazri, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) regulatory officer Zulkarnain Mohd Yassin and Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) assistant director (telecommunications criminal investigation) Supt Rozeni Ismail.
Comm Azmi said, based on statistics recorded related to cyber crime in the city, a total of 3,464 cases were recorded involving a loss of RM2.6bil.
“The number of cases recorded increased by 598 cases or 17.3% with 4,062 cases recorded in 2020, but the amount of losses decreased to RM637mil.
“Last year, the number of cases continued to increase by 278 cases or 6.8% to 4,360 cases and losses also increased to RM665mil,” he said.
Comm Azmi said his personnel would redouble efforts to combat cyber crime in the city by increasing awareness campaigns among the community.
“Kuala Lumpur police has a strength of about 9,000 personnel members and that number is unlikely to succeed in increasing the public’s understanding of fraudulent activities without the cooperation of other agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community groups.
“We also want to call on the public to help the police to ensure that cyber crime can be eradicated in making Kuala Lumpur a safe city,” he said adding that the public needed to know that there were those who wanted to take advantage by using various means to cheat.
“If you receive a phone call from an unknown individual, immediately stop the conversation if it raises suspicion,” he said.
