KUALA LUMPUR: The amount of money lost to online scams nationwide has jumped drastically from RM1.57bil in 2024 to RM2.97bil in 2025, and has reached RM830mil in just the first five months of 2026.
The Home Ministry said the most common form was investment scams, which consistently recorded the largest amount with RM848.62mil in 2024, RM1.46bil in 2025 and RM361.63mil so far in 2026.
According to the ministry, the trend was closely followed by telecommunications crime that recorded RM497.12mil (2024), RM802.47mil (2025) and RM235.63mil (as of May 2026), while love scams continued to record losses of RM45.87mil (2024), RM47.44mil (2025) and RM17.76mil for 2026.
From a geographical aspect, he said Selangor and Kuala Lumpur continued to record the highest losses, with Selangor jumping from RM446.16mil (2024) to RM986.79mil (2025), while Kuala Lumpur increased from RM293.30mil (2024) to RM782.86mil (2025).
"States with other economic focus such as Johor, Penang and Perak also recorded significant year-on-year increases between 2024 and 2025 while Sabah and Sarawak also exhibited a similar trend of losses and increased to more than RM110mil in 2025," said the Home Ministry in a written reply posted on the Parliament portal on Wednesday (July 24).
The ministry was responding to a question from Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee (PN-Warisan) on the trend of losses due to online fraud crimes in the past three years by case and state categories, the success rate of recovery of victims' money, as well as measures taken to improve the effectiveness of detection, freezing and returning funds to victims.
The Ministry of Home Affairs stressed its commitment to combating online crimes by strengthening the operation of the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) which operates 24 hours a day by taking swift action through freezing bank accounts and transaction restrictions.
Since the establishment of NSRC in 2022, a total of RM32.49mil in fraud victim funds has been successfully seized and a total of RM10.9mil returned to the victims.
"Based on statistics from 2022 to 2025, the seized money amounted to RM25.2mil with 29% or RM7.3mil of which was successfully returned to the victims, while for the period January to May 2026, a total of RM7.25mil in funds was seized with RM3.57mil or 49% returned to the victims.
"The increase in the percentage of funds returned proves that the function of NSRC as a national scam response centre is becoming more effective and is increasingly trusted by the people," according to the ministry. – Bernama
