KUCHING: Seven scam call centres in Sarawak have been busted and 42 people arrested in the latest police operation to shutter such operations targeting victims outside the country.
State police commissioner Comm Saifullizan Ishak attributed the success to a public tip-off.
"The public provided information, allowing us to take immediate action," he told a press conference at state police headquarters here on Thursday (Nov 12).
He said of the 42, aged 19 to 61 years, 28 are foreign nationals, comprising 18 Chinese, eight Indonesians, one Taiwanese and one Myanmar national who entered on a tourist pass.
The rest of the suspects are Malaysians.
The centres, located in urban centres such as Kuching, Sibu, Bintulu, Miri and Padawan on the outskirts of this city, were part of a national network, Comm Saifullizan added.
He said officers from the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) at state police headquarters and their counterparts from Bukit Aman kept watch on the seven centres from Oct 19 to 31 before moving in to take them down.
It was part of a simultaneous operation conducted throughout Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak, he added.
The Sarawak call centres – the oldest in operation for 11 months and the most recently active, just 10 days – offered nonexistent investment schemes, including in cryptocurrency, jobs, online gambling and love scams targeting victims from Japan, China, Indonesia and Australia.
Comm Saifullizan said 33 of the 42 suspects have been charged under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating and Section 120B for criminal conspiracy.
Seventeen pleaded guilty and were each fined between RM500 and RM4,000.
Three turned prosecution witnesses.
Comm Saifullizan said police will not compromise with any individual or group involved in online scams, particularly call centre syndicates that use Malaysia as a base.
He said enforcement action will be intensified to track down the masterminds, financial networks and any parties complicit in such criminal activities.
He said the public could also play a part in taking down these centres in their respective neighbourhoods, as scammers like to operate from abandoned industrial buildings, factories and warehouses, newly developed residential estates that are not fully populated yet, apartments with low occupancy, bungalows and shopping centres, or commercial complexes with low customer traffic.
"Remain vigilant and report suspicious premises, particularly residential properties or buildings suspected of being used as bases for online scam operations," he said.
Such tips could help ease the difficulties the police face in tackling these centres, he added.
"Their victims are not locals. Countries around the world are currently facing the same problem."
He also disclosed that on Saturday (Nov 7), police scored their biggest anti-smuggling seizure this year when they arrested one man and seized a container filled with untaxed alcohol and cigarettes from a private jetty in Sibu.
The total estimated value of the seizure was approximately RM9.7mil, he added
A team of officers and personnel from the tactical team of the Marine Police Region 5 Sarawak, using PGR8 patrol boats, carried out the raid and inspection at the jetty on a tributary of the Rajang River.
Comm Saifullizan said when the team hit the jetty, they found a local man in his 20s "in the vicinity of a suspicious container".
He said the man was then instructed to open the container, and inspection revealed a variety of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes believed to have escaped Customs duties.
The man was detained when he failed to produce any documentation for the alcohol and cigarettes.
