There had been “certain operational shortcomings” under its current structure, he said, according to Bernama.

The centre was set up in 2022 as a joint venture between the National Anti-Financial Crime Centre, the police, Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, Bank Negara Malaysia, banks and telecommunications companies.

“Under the new structure, the police will directly receive scam reports, record the necessary details and notify the relevant banks immediately to freeze the victim’s account. Efforts to recover stolen funds will follow promptly,” Saifuddin was quoted as saying.

The police will now be supported by the other key agencies instead.

He said the restructuring will also enable NSRC’s 997 hotline to be operational 24 hours daily, with the centre to get more manpower to improve its response time.

Saifuddin said the proposed improvements were approved by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim and will be executed soon. Anwar had said on Thursday that the centre’s role would be expanded to cover all forms of cybercrime.

The centre was set up in 2022 to deal with the growing number of cyber fraud cases in Malaysia, including phishing scams, Macau scams, malware attack scams, parcel scams and love scams.

Last year, Anwar said in a parliamentary reply that Malaysians suffered the loss of RM1.22 billion to online scams from January to October 2024. He said the figure includes losses from various fraudulent schemes, such as telecommunications fraud, e-commerce scams, non-existent loans, love scams and fake investments.