THERE were 15,106 cases of online fraud that were investigated in the past three years, of which 77 involved money laundering resulting in RM75.35mil frozen in bank accounts, said the Prime Minister’s Department.
These cases also saw 131 phone numbers being terminated and 112 numbers blocked by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, said Deputy Minister (Law and Institutional Reform) M. Kulasegaran.
He added that these cases took place between October 2022 and September this year and were investigated under Section 420 of the Penal Code.
He was responding to Hasnizan Harun (PN-Hulu Selangor), who inquired about the ministry’s initiatives in tackling online scams, which have caused losses exceeding RM2.6bil in just under three years.
Kulasegaran said one of the major challenges in fighting scams is that consumers do not properly verify what they have in their bank accounts when scammers attempt to deceive them.
He affirmed that authorities have continued to implement several actions to combat this problem.
“This is a problem that has to be contained,” he stressed.
To enhance consumer protection, he said Bank Negara Malaysia requires all financial institutions to conduct thorough and transparent investigations into every case of financial fraud.
He further said that banks are liable for fully bearing the losses from fraud if these are due to the bank’s weaknesses.
