SHAH ALAM, Feb 20 — The Sessions Court here today allowed an application by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) to forfeit more than RM3.4 million in credit balance of prepaid cards belonging to 533 customers of Digi Telecommunication Sdn Bhd.

The cards were believed to have been purchased to carry out unlawful activities.

Judge Rozilah Salleh allowed the application after deputy public prosecutor from the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) Allan Suman Pillai informed the court that the money was the remaining credit in 773 prepaid online accounts belonging to 533 customers.

Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd, named the respondent and represented by its senior legal adviser V. Muraliharan, did not object to the application.

Based on the affidavit in the application, the respondent conducted an internal investigation following complaints from customers of getting a lot of short message service (SMS) inviting them to participate in online gambling.

However, the telecommunication company said that it did not provide a platform for online gambling, but that the credit value in the prepaid cards could be manipulated for online gambling.

Digi also stated that the company did not have full access to the Republic GG platform, which is fully controlled by Inonex company and that it could not detect if the credit balance in the credit cards was used for illegal activities.

The MACC also conducted its own investigation which found that there were prepaid card users with excessive and suspicious credit balances, believed to be used for illegal activities.

In November 2020, the MACC seized the credit balance of prepaid cards belonging to 593 users with a balance of more than RM3,000 and above, leading to the seizure of RM4.2 million, and instructed the respondent to issue four notices to the users for them to claim directly with the MACC.

They were given from November 21, 2020, to June 15, 202, to claim.

Some 60 individuals claimed a refund from MACC and managed to recover their prepaid account credit balance amounting to RM835,638.43. — Bernama