Federal police said 4,368 cases were reported in the first six months of the year, a 60.8% increase from the 2,715 recorded in the same period last year involving RM350 million in losses.
Bukit Aman commercial crime investigation department director Rusdi Isa said one of the three main ploys utilised by scammers was wooing potential victims through ads posted on social media.
Those who expressed interest would then be added to a WhatsApp group, where they would be “taught” about the stock market by a self-proclaimed trader, Berita Harian reported.
The victims are then told to register on a website to start investing, and to channel money to mule accounts.
“On their screens, it will say that they’re making earnings. But when they try to withdraw their profits, they would get all kinds of suspicious excuses,” he said.
The other method, known as “high and fast money”, involved syndicate members posing as foreign exchange brokers offering various investment packages with the promise of quick profits, even within hours.
“However, the victims would be asked to pay for the investment capital, brokerage fees, international withdrawal charges, and taxes. Despite making the payments, they do not get the profits they were promised,” he said.
Rusdi said the third ploy involved the more orchestrated ponzi scheme, with the syndicate holding briefings online or even face-to-face and even setting up a physical office to dupe unsuspecting victims.
After the victims were registered, they would be asked to deposit stablecoins such as USDT (a cryptocurrency also known as Tether) from their digital wallets to the investment platform.
The investors would then be duped into adding more capital after seeing the “profits” they were making in the system.
“However, the capital collected from new investors is used to pay for the returns of existing investors. When no new investors come in, the syndicate will stop making payouts and just disappear,” he said.
Rusdi urged the public to be wary of such investment schemes and to take note of the modus operandi of these scam rings.
He said they could visit semakmule.rmp.gov to check on possible mule accounts, telephone numbers or companies that were being probed by police.