Malaysians Lost A Mind-Boggling RM11.2 Billion To Scammers In Just 5 Years

Last year’s greatest hits were phone scams with 14,684 cases.

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Hold onto your wallets, folks.

Malaysia’s top commercial crime cop just dropped some seriously scary numbers about how much money sneaky scammers have been swiping from unsuspecting victims.

Bukit Aman’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) Director, Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf, said during a press conference that Malaysians lost an eye-watering RM11.23 billion to various scams over the past five years.

That’s enough money to buy about 37 million bubble tea drinks.

Faster Than Your Mom Can Say “I Told You So”

Here’s the really scary part: these scams are spreading like wildfire.

In 2020, police were dealing with 27,323 cases.

Fast forward to last year? 41,701 cases. That’s a 53.2% jump that would make even a kangaroo jealous.

Let’s break down last year’s scam-tastic numbers:

Fraud cases: 37,240 (RM2.45 billion gone with the wind)
Trust-related scams: 1,448 (RM546.39 million vanished)
Illegal lending: 1,060 (RM5.29 million disappeared)
And the list goes on…

The scammers have quite a menu of tricks. The most popular scams include:

Phone scams (14,684 cases) – Because apparently, some prince still needs help moving his millions.
E-commerce scams (7,662 cases) – That too-good-to-be-true PS5 deal? Yes, it was.
Fake investment schemes (6,337 cases) – Your neighbour’s cousin’s friend isn’t a crypto genius.
Love parcel scams (770 cases) – Because romance scams needed a trendy makeover.

Malaysia’s Epic Battle Against Scammers: 3.1 Billion Suspicious Calls Blocked

The police are fighting back, though.

They’ve taken 40.3% of these cases to court and held over 10,000 awareness programs nationwide.

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) blocked a whopping 3.1 billion suspected scam calls as of December 2024.

This massive operation was in response to an alarming RM53.34 billion lost to scams last year alone – a staggering 3% of Malaysia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the State of Scam 2024 report.

MCMC has received nearly 12,000 scam-related complaints since partnering with the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) in October 2022.

Remember, folks, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is!

'2024 Wrapped' anda sudah tiba! Tahun ini, scammer mendendangkan pelbagai tipu helah tapi anda lebih bijak! Pastikan tip-tip cegah scam masih di carta teratas anda. Jika anda menjadi mangsa penipuan kewangan, segera hubungi bank anda atau NSRC melalui 997.
Sumber : Amaran Scam pic.twitter.com/IVEnhZmbCP
— Jabatan Penerangan WPKL🇲🇾 (@JaPenWPKL) December 30, 2024

Parts of this story have been sourced from Sinar Harian and Oriental Daily.

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