He said this was based on the 30,724 cases recorded during that period, with total losses reaching RM2.77 billion.

“This is equivalent to an average of 88 cases a day. This is almost a 3% drop compared to the same period last year, which saw 31,588 cases recorded.

“The amount of losses recorded, however, increased by 44% compared to the RM1.92 billion recorded last year,” he told a press conference at the CCID headquarters here yesterday.

So far, a total of 13,721 investigation papers or 45% have led to charges in court – slightly more than the 13,450 cases during the same period last year.

Ramli said the overall drop in commercial crime cases reflected greater public awareness. However, he said the police would double their efforts to combat and prevent such cases.

Separately, he said cases involving unlicensed money lenders or loan sharks increased over the past four years, with 977 cases in 2021, 989 in 2022, 1,162 in 2023, and 981 cases this year as of November.

As a result of various operations and raids, police arrested 4,737 people for loan shark-related offences over these four years.

“The question is when will this loan shark issue end? Even if we were to launch operations to curb such activities daily, we can’t put an end to this issue because there is demand from the public.

“We have reminded them not to borrow from loan sharks but if there is no public awareness, we will get nowhere,” Ramli said.