‘Sibu police show high success rate in scam probes’

THE number of people in Sibu falling prey to Macau scams has remained high with 26 cases reported last year, involving losses of over RM2.7mil.

Losses in 2020 from 38 cases amounted to RM2.5mil.

Sibu district acting police chief Supt Dr Collin Babat, in a statement, said of the total number of cases in the last two years, 41 were successfully brought to court while another 23 were still under investigation.

“This achievement by the Commercial Crime Investigation Division is the best among all district police stations in the state,” he added.

He explained that investigations into commercial crimes typically involved going through bank accounts, phone numbers and social media accounts.

“For bank accounts, the police need to follow certain procedures to obtain the account holder’s information.”

Supt Collin said the police could not act arbitrarily and should be given space to carry out their duties transparently based on existing legal provisions.

He was responding to recent comments by Dudong assemblyman Datuk Seri Tiong King Sing, who questioned Sibu police’s slow response to Macau scam cases that had been reported in the district.

Supt Collin said the police was also making efforts to raise public awareness of the latest modus operandi of such fraudsters by organising talks at government departments, schools and places of worship.

“The media, including social media platforms, are used to deliver important announcements to the community,” he added.

Supt Collin advised the public not to panic upon receiving phone calls from strangers claiming to be from government departments or financial institutions.

Instead, they should immediately end the call and check with the department or institution concerned by calling a valid number or going in person to seek confirmation.

He reminded the public not to call any phone number provided by the scammers.

Suspicious callers’ phone numbers and bank accounts can also be checked via the Check Scammers CCID mobile application or the semakmule.rmp.gov.my website before making any financial transactions.

The public can also contact the CCID scam response centre hotline at 03-26101559/03-26101599 or the CCID infoline at 013- 2111222 via WhatsApp or SMS for advice or information related to online criminal cases.

“If you feel you have been deceived, please make a police report at the nearest police station,’’ he added.

Tiong, who is the Prime Minister’s Special Envoy to China, had said that in a recent Macau scam in Sibu, the victims were deceived into voluntarily surrendering their bank cards and PIN numbers.

The bank accounts were emptied into a local account in Negri Sembilan and the money was subsequently moved to other unknown accounts.

He said the police should have dealt with the report as soon as they received it because the scammers had managed to close the bank accounts before they could be tracked down.