KOTA BARU: Close to RM3.7 million in a mere 11 months.
This was the amount of losses suffered by victims of the Macau scam in Kelantan recorded by the state police's commercial crime investigation department (CCID).
The amount was recorded from 99 cases from January to Nov 18 with most of the victims being students and government pensioners.
To show that the police were serious in combatting these cases, they also detained 20 individuals for providing mule accounts to the scammers.
State CCID chief Superintendent Ahmad Azizul Mohamed said each of these victims lost between RM700 to more than RM500,000 to the scammers.
"The modus operandi used by the Macau and online scams in Kelantan is almost similar to other states.
"Victims are cheated by threats through calls and due to this, they willingly transferred their money to the mule accounts.
"They only realised they were cheated later but it is already too late. These scammers are really smart... they use various tactics including posing as policemen and court officers to fool the victims," he said.
He informed that last year alone, the Kelantan police recorded 121 Macau scam cases with losses suffered by the victims nearing RM10 million.
Ahmad Azizul said the biggest case recorded this year was in May where a female clerk, in her 40s, lost more than RM500,000 in the span of one month.
"She was forced to pay the amount by a 'police officer from the Sabah headquaters' who duped her into thinking that she failed to pay taxes to the Inland Revenue Board.
"Afraid that she would land in trouble if she did not pay the tax, the woman then made 12 cash transfers into certain accounts amounting to RM534,000 in a month," said Ahmad Azizul.