Bukit Aman director of commercial crime Mohd Kamarudin Md Din said the suspects, aged 25 to 40, were nabbed in ‘Op Tiong’, a collaborative effort between the Malaysian and Hong Kong police.

“The syndicate members entered Malaysia about three years ago using student passes, various aliases and fake accounts on Facebook and Instagram.

“They would send requests to be friends of social media users in the targeted countries and sweet talk the victims with false promises, after which they would ask the victims to transfer money into the bank accounts provided,” he said in a statement today.

“The public should not be easily taken in by beautiful or handsome profile pictures on social media, and not be misled by sweet talk and empty promises, which are all tactics used by scam syndicates,” he added.

Without revealing the losses suffered by victims, Kamarudin said those involved with the syndicate targeted victims from Malaysia and Hong Kong.

Several laptops, mobile phones, routers, passports and ATM cards of various banks were also seized in the raids.

The suspects have been remanded for five days till Saturday to facilitate investigations under Section 420 of the Penal Code, as well as Sections 6(1)(c) and (1)(c) of the Immigration Act 1959/1963.

Kamarudin urged the public to verify whether a particular bank account had been used in frauds and scams previously by checking the website, http://ccid.rmp.gov.my/semakmule/ or by downloading the ‘Semak Mule CCID’ app before making any transactions.

Those with information or concerns about commercial crime can reach out to the CCID Scam Response Centre at 03-2610 1559/03-2610 1599, he added.