KUALA LUMPUR: Amendments to the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Code now allow police to halt transactions and seize money suspected to be linked to scams in any financial institutions.
Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister's Department (Law and Institutional Reform) M. Kulasegaran said the amendments that came into force on Oct 30 would prevent the transfer of scam victims' money.
He said this in the Dewan Rakyat in response to a question by Lim Lip Eng (Pakatan Harapan-Kepong) about whether there was legislation that allowed police or banks to block transactions involving individuals being targeted by scams but do not believe they were being deceived.
To further tackle online fraud, Kulasegaran said, the Online Safety Bill would be brought to the cabinet for consideration.
He said the bill would place the responsibility on service providers to remove content reported as harmful.
"If any content is reported as online financial crime, the platform provider will be obliged to take down the content on an interim basis until further investigation is carried out."
He said the National Scam Response Centre received 131,036 calls on online scams between October 2022 and September last year.
He said of the total, 52,836 calls were from victims, with losses totalling RM302.1 million.
"A total of 103,557 mule accounts have been identified.
In September, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said the bill would be tabled in the Dewan Rakyat in October.
He had said the bill would tackle future challenges and address current issues, including cyberbullying and scams.