Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said this was one of NSRC’s successes, in cooperation with the National Anti-Financial Crime Centre, Bank Negara Malaysia, the police, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), as well as financial institutions and the telecommunications industry.
“From its establishment until October 2024, a total of 140,474 calls were received by NSRC, 69,000 of which involved financial fraud cases,” he said in response to Suhaizan Kaiat (PH-Pulai) during Prime Minister’s Question Time.
Suhaizan had asked whether the government would review the money lending licences under the housing and local government ministry and how it planned to put an end to scams and manipulation in banking administrations.
Anwar said losses of RM1.224 billion from online financial fraud cases were recorded from January to October this year, encompassing online scams, telecommunications crimes, e-finance and love scams, e-commerce, non-existent loans, and fraudulent investments.
He said over 1.4 billion suspicious calls and 1.2 billion unsolicited SMS messages had also been blocked by telecommunications companies.
“The communications ministry, through MCMC, has managed to terminate 118,184 lines and block access to 9,474 fraudulent websites,” he added.
Anwar also expressed concern over statistics from the Semak Mule portal, which showed that as of Oct 31, a total of 181,628 phone numbers, 222,092 bank account numbers, and 1,395 company names had been recorded in relation to online fraud cases.
“This portal has been very helpful because through its reports, 32,066,000 searches were made, and 22,200,984 gave a positive response, meaning there were attempts to transfer funds to mule accounts but many were thwarted due to the efforts made,” he said.
Other measures taken to address online fraud include amendments to Section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, the drafting of the Online Safety Act, as well as ongoing action by NSRC.
In response to Suhaizan’s original question on the cause of the increase in cases and preventive measures for 361 suspected cases involved in unlicensed moneylending crimes detected within a nine-day period since Nov 4, Anwar said they were the result of Op Vulture, an integrated nationwide operation by the commercial crime investigation department from Nov 4 to 12.
“The issue is indeed serious because according to Asean records, the total value of all scam crimes amounts to US$64 billion,” he said.
Anwar said seven moneylending companies had also been raided for violating Regulation 15A(b) of the Moneylenders (Control & Licensing) Regulations (Amendment) 2024.
“These companies held the borrowers’ bank cards, which complicated matters,” he added.