BANGI: The National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) has returned 65% of funds seized from online scammers between January and July this year to their victims, says Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail.
“At the NSRC, the police work with partners to freeze and return stolen money. We recorded RM5.16mil successfully returned out of RM7.94mil that was seized,” said the Home Minister.
“To do that, we have to stop a layer of the transaction, and that is among the things we do through the NSRC,” he told a press conference held in conjunction with the 6th International Cyber Resilience Conference yesterday.
Citing an estimate by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, Saifuddin Nasution said scammers steal more than US$1 trillion from people every year.
He said the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that scam operations in South-East Asia alone bring in tens of billions of dollars a year.
“Some estimates put the total global cost of cybercrime above US$10 trillion a year, bigger than the economies of Japan and Germany combined.
“Make no mistake. This is a worldwide crime, worldwide syndicates, modern tools, and victims in every country on earth.
“As such, we need a whole-of-government and whole-of-nation approach, with enforcement, industry, academia, technology providers and international partners working as one.
“As crime evolves, our response must be supported by research, innovation and expertise, and that is why a conference like this matters,” he said.
He also said Malaysia recorded 66,204 cybercrime cases involving losses of RM2.97bil in 2025, compared with 35,368 cases and RM1.57bil in losses the previous year.
On the same development, Saifuddin Nasution said the government must adapt as criminals increasingly turn to artificial intelligence to carry out more sophisticated and harder-to-trace offences.
He added that cybercrime was no longer merely a technology issue, but also a security and law enforcement matter, with AI rapidly changing how crimes were committed.
“Generative AI is perhaps the biggest change in cybersecurity and cybercrime. It works on both sides of this fight, as a threat and as a shield.
“It gives criminals new weapons, from creating convincing scam messages and deepfakes to cloning voices and carrying out thousands of scam conversations simultaneously.
“But it also gives us new defences. It can detect fraud patterns, scan millions of transactions, analyse huge volumes of digital evidence, detect deepfakes, trace stolen money, and warn us of attacks.
“If criminals learn AI faster than our defenders, we will lose this fight no matter how much technology we buy,” he said.
He added that there must be serious and continuous investment in skills and human capital, with officers trained to use AI tools.
He said prosecutors and judges must understand digital evidence, while agencies need data scientists and analysts alongside detectives.
Universities, he said, must also produce graduates fluent in both security and AI, while professionals in the field must keep learning as AI continues to evolve.
Saifuddin Nasution said the ministry’s overall readiness to embrace AI stood at 75%, based on a survey its policy division conducted three years ago.
“Am I satisfied? Of course not, because I still see a lot of room for improvement. Are we moving in that direction, and are we committed? The answer is yes.”
