Public continues to fall for Macau Scam despite warnings

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 Anti-Money 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.