KUALA LUMPUR: The police will intensify their crackdown on call centres as their operations last year resulted in the arrest of 2,052 suspected scammers in 266 raids across the country.
Bukit Aman's commercial crime investigation department director Datuk Seri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf said police were also cooperating with their counterparts abroad in information-sharing on syndicates entering Malaysia to set up call centres.
"For this year, our plan is to intensify the operations and raids on call centres, whether for the purpose of investment fraud, call scams, online gambling or other illicit activities.
"We hope to reduce the number of these call centres through intelligence gathering or information provided by our officers and the public.
"We also receive cooperation from foreign countries through their respective liaison officers, such as embassies or high commissions, informing us of any possibility of a syndicate coming in to open call centres. We can effectively prevent this with cooperation from all parties," he told the New Sunday Times.
Out of the 266 call centre raids conducted last year, 86 were involved in investment fraud, 77 in e-commerce fraud, 41 in phone scams, another 41 in online gambling, and the rest were for other illicit activities.
Ramli said the police would also deploy their information technology experts capable of identifying the type of call centres during raids.
This is crucial as call centres are typically divided into different "departments" that serve various functions, such as the call department or the finance management department, Ramli said.
"We have experts who can identify whether the call centres are operating for online gambling or other purposes. This is essential for presenting evidence in court.
"Based on our observations, syndicates operate through a number of dedicated departments; some solely to make calls and some to manage the entry of money into mule accounts.
"All of this requires expertise on our part to conduct a comprehensive raid," he said.
On Oct 20 last year, Ramli said they detained more than 1,000 individuals for suspected involvement in scam syndicate call centres.
Besides locals, others were from China, Indonesia, Taiwan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore, the Philippines and India. There were also those from the United Kingdom, France, Nigeria, Nepal, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Jordan and Iran.
About half of them had been charged in court.
Ramli also revealed that fraud-related crimes were on the rise from January to November last year, with losses amounting to a staggering RM1.3 billion.
A total of 32,462 cases of online fraud were reported in the first 11 months of last year. This was an increase from 30,536 in 2022 and 31,388 in 2021. It was expected to be higher in December.