KUALA LUMPUR, March 24 ― Police have detected accounts of WhatsApp and Telegram owned by politicians, former senior government servants and VIPs which have been hacked to acquire details of its group members to borrow money.

Revealing the latest scam modus operandi, Bukit Aman Commercial CID director Datuk Mohd Kamarudin Md Din said the syndicates involved would hack the mobile phone application of a victim before taking over the account and contacting the victim’s friends to borrow money. 

“The syndicate would impersonate the victim and send message to each member of the chat group application of the victim for a loan.

“The contacted victims may not be aware that they have become the scam victims until the host alerted its group members,” he said in a media conference here today.

Mohd Kamarudin said following the discovery of the modus operandi, police have received 1,710 reports involving losses amounting to RM11.47 million since 2020 to February this year.

He said smart phone users are advised to be careful when receiving messages from unknown individuals asking for their password.

Meanwhile, Bukit Aman CCID Scam Response Center would be cooperating with Bank Negara Malaysia and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia (MCMC) to combat online frauds.

Mohd Kamarudin said the cooperation would help expedite follow-up actions, especially in tracking down the money trail as the process of syndicates to transfer money from the victim’s account to another account is very fast.

“Cooperation as well strengthening the existing system is being carried out and we expect both agencies to start working with CCID Scam Response Center in June,” he said.

He said since the centre was set up in February last year, 2,399 calls have been received with 1,530 calls or 63.4 per cent on the modus operandi of Macau scam, love scam, online shopping, loan and investment frauds as well as 869 on other enquiries.

“Members of the public can contact CCID Scam Response Centre at 03-26101559 or 03-26101599 if they have received suspicious calls,” he said.

Apart from that, people can also check suspicious telephone numbers at  https://semakmule.rmp.gov.my/ before making any transaction, he added. ― Bernama