PETALING JAYA: The surge in scamming rackets, which has seen scores of victims being deceived into working in “scam parks”, has prompted a group of academics to investigate Malaysians’ awareness of the activities in order to find a solution to prevent more citizens from becoming victims.
The study, which will be carried out through a survey, was initiated by Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman’s (Utar) Tan Cheng Lock Centre for Social and Policy Studies, Universiti Teknologi Mara’s Academy of Contemporary Islamic Studies in Perlis and the Centre for Malaysian Chinese Studies (Huayan).
It is jointly supported by The Star, Sin Chew Daily, Astro Awani, Sinar Harian and Malaysia Nanban, which formed the Media in Arms alliance last year to pool resources to offer readers diversified and in-depth content.
According to the academicians carrying out the survey, “scam parks” are generally defined as the gathering or collection of large fraud organisations dabbling in human trafficking operations typically found in South-East Asian countries such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar.
They operate by luring victims with promises of high-paying jobs overseas. However, the victims will find themselves forced to work as scammers themselves to target other potential victims through love scams or fraudulent purchases of cryptocurrencies, among others.
If the victims, who are now forced scammers, fail in their jobs, they will often face threats of being forced into prostitution or having their organs harvested.
A recent report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has raised concerns about the severity of human trafficking and forced criminality in South-East Asia, the researchers added.
“According to this report, hundreds of thousands of trafficked victims have been exploited by transnational crime syndicates to defraud people around the world.”
Most victims are held in scam parks in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and several other countries.
“In the scam parks, victims are forced to conduct online scams and fraud,” the researchers said in a statement.
It was also reported that many Malaysians had become victims of such syndicates, with a group of them recently rescued from captors in Peru.
“Most of the victims were deceived and ended up being detained in the scam parks after lucrative job opportunities lured them there.
“Some of the victims ended up in the scam parks after they received invitations to participate in tour programmes, while others were duped by fake romantic relationships,” said one of the lead researchers, Dr Chin Yee Mun from Utar’s Tan Cheng Lock Centre for Social and Policy Studies.
However, there have yet to be structured regulations, guides or programmes to prevent Malaysians, specifically, from becoming victims.
“As of now, there is no visible concrete programme initiated by relevant parties to stop Malaysians from being lured by these syndicates. Most efforts tend to focus on repatriating the victims back to Malaysia.
“The absence of a concrete programme to deter Malaysians from being victimised is probably due to the fact that many Malaysians are unaware that they have been duped and voluntarily leave Malaysia to embark on a ‘lucrative career’, a ‘tour programme’ or a ‘romantic’ relationship’,” he said.
The academicians’ study focuses on analysing Malaysians’ perspectives on the risks associated with their decisions to either be taken advantage of by scammers or avoid falling victim to their schemes.
Additionally, it will consider public feedback on the government’s efforts to develop preventive measures.
The survey will be conducted from today until Oct 30.
Scan here to take part in the survey.
