Millions lost to scammers posing as NSRC officials

KUALA LUMPUR: Scammers impersonating National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) personnel have already duped 60 people this year, resulting in RM7.6mil worth of losses, says Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf.

The Bukit Aman Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director said the victims would receive calls from someone claiming to be from the NSRC, who would then tell them that their phone number was linked to a scam report and might be cancelled.

“The call will then be transferred to another person, posing as a police officer.

“They will be told to follow every instruction until they eventually transfer funds to an account,” he said when contacted.

Comm Ramli emphasised that NSRC operates solely as a one-way communications centre for reporting scams.

“NSRC officers will not call anyone and if you receive any calls claiming to be from the centre, it is definitely a scam.

“I also hope the public will make use of the SemakMule portal to check and verify bank accounts before making transactions,” he said.

The police have opened 60 investigations into such cases, involving RM7.6mil in losses, as of June 15, Comm Ramli said.

“One of the latest cases involves a 70-year-old retired factory worker in Johor who lost RM584,000 of his life savings after he received a call from scammers posing as NSRC officers,” he added.

On another matter, Comm Ramli said there were reported losses of RM1.07bil from 14,846 commercial cases in the first 24 weeks of the year.

“We recorded an average of 88 cases daily,” he said.

He added that the number of cases had increased slightly from the 14,798 cases that were recorded in the corresponding period last year.

“However, the amount of losses has spiked by about 27% as the cases resulted in RM843mil in losses last year,” he said.

He added that the CCID is confident in dealing with the huge number of cases, as it has seen an increase in successful prosecutions.

“A total of 7,018 investigation papers led to successful prosecutions this year compared with the same period last year when 6,219 prosecutions were recorded,” he said.

Comm Ramli reminded the public to be more vigilant.

“Help us spread commercial crime prevention messages. Let us work together to create a safer environment, free from commercial crime,” he said.