[KERATAN AKHBAR PILIHAN] SCAM ALERT: PUBLIC MUST PLAY ITS PART AND STAY VIGILANT AGAINST SCAMMERS

Kuala Lumpur, 4th September 2024 – Check before you click, say the police.

Director of Commercial Crime Investigation Department, CP Dato’ Sri Ramli Mohamed Yoosuf has urged the public to use the SemakMule portal (https://semakmule.rmp.gov.my) before making any financial transaction online.

“Use the SemakMule portal to verify and check the list of mule bank accounts, phone numbers and shell companies used by scammers.

“The portal was established in 2020 to list phone numbers and mule bank accounts, but it has since been improved to (include) the names of shell companies,” he told The Star yesterday.

Dato’ Sri Ramli said that so far, a total of 216,074 mule accounts have been listed on the site along with 178,006 phone numbers used by scammers.

“We also listed a total of 3,904 shell companies used by scammers,” he added.

Some 27 million visitors have logged in to the portal since its inception, and about one million of the searches have been positive, meaning transactions made to mule accounts were prevented.

Dato’ Sri Ramli hopes that the public would be able to fully utilise the improved SemakMule portal to prevent from getting scammed.

“We will never relent in our enforcement efforts against scam syndicates, but we hope the public can play its part by staying vigilant,” he said.

Dato’ Sri Ramli said scammers are coming up with new modus operandi to dupe victims into giving them their money, including using generative artificial intelligence to produce fake videos, as well as audio and text messages.

“Scammers are resorting to new and innovative ways to dupe victims. We have encountered cases recently in which scammers used deepfake technology to mimic the voice of a victim's friend to dupe them.

“Use the SemakMule portal to prevent being scammed. The public can also report any scam to the National Scam Response Centre by calling the 997 hotline,” he added.

Read further on The Star’s article attached.