KUALA LUMPUR: Commercial crimes this year alone have already resulted in over RM500mil losses with 9,431 investigations papers opened so far, Bukit Aman says.
Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) director Comm Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said the investigation papers opened between Jan 1 and March 4 represented a 48% spike compared to 6,354 cases during the same period last year.
"The number of losses (derived from the IPs opened) showed a 9% increase compared to RM458.8mil recorded last year," he said when contacted on Thursday (March 6).
Online scams contributed the largest number of commercial crime cases, he said.
"We believe this trend will increase in the weeks ahead.
"As of March 4, a total of 8,322 scam cases have been recorded, representing 88.2% of commercial crime cases this year.
"The number of losses (from scam cases) has also reached RM368.7mil or 73% of total losses from commercial crime cases," he said.
Of the total online scam cases, investment scams contributed the largest amount of losses at RM241.6mil, he said.
"However, in terms of number of cases, telecommunication scams recorded the highest number of cases this year, with 3,706 cases. Among the other top types of scams are e-commerce scams (1,690 cases), investment scams (1,338) and loan scams (928)," he said.
