Selangor police chief Arjunaidi Mohamed said the amount involved 1,354 cases, which accounted for 75% of the total number of commercial crime cases in the state, with Macau scams accounting for the highest number of online fraud cases.

“Based on our investigations, most (of the RM59.6 million) had been transferred abroad and caused losses to the country’s economy,” he said after launching the state-level Royal Malaysia Police Anti-Scam Campaign.

Arjunaidi said between January and June this year, more than 1,700 people had been detained for their role as mule account owners.

He said the use of mule accounts made it difficult for police to prove the involvement of the real criminals behind the scams.

He said the existing law under Section 420 of the Penal Code, namely fraud, needed to be amended so that it would be in line with advances in technology, adding that it currently was not equipped to handle the situation with online banking and money transfer systems.

“I have expressed the need to amend or enact laws that are more in line with current developments. This is because this pertains to online crime. Our laws do not cover online crime,” he said.