Malaysian Cyber Consumers Association president Siraj Jalil said scam tactics have evolved from the typical Macau, love, investment and parcel scams to complex cybercrimes involving child sexual exploitation, extortion, and illegal content sales, Bernama reported.

He said an example was of scammers offering fake “sugar mummy” services on TikTok to lure teenagers.

Victims are tricked into sharing personal content and are later blackmailed for large sums of money to prevent the material from being made public.

“Even after payments are made, these materials are often sold on platforms like Telegram, especially to paedophile networks,” Siraj was quoted as saying.

Online sellers were also being impersonated by scammers who copy their ads and cheat buyers. In such cases, genuine sellers may have their accounts frozen when victims report the fraud, he said.

According to Siraj, modern scams involved AI-generated content, leaked user data from major tech firms such as Meta, and social engineering to study and manipulate victim behavior.

He urged parents to monitor their children’s online activity and called for the government to introduce AI literacy education to raise public awareness.