Macau scam syndicates target people aged 51 and above

Bukit Aman Commercial CID director, Datuk Mohd Kamaruddin Md Din said those aged 51 and above were prime targets as they are financially stable with savings for old age as well as retirement fund.

He said the findings were from a police analysis of cheating cases in the country.

"It is very sad when money which should be used for retirement disappeared after they became victims of fraud," he said in a statement today.

According to statistics, Mohd Kamaruddin said 29.3 per cent or 1,621 individuals of 5,535 Macau Scam victims reported from 2019 to June this year were aged 51 and above.

He said victims aged 41 to 50 years old, made up 17.8 per cent of cases, victims aged 31 to 41 (25.3 per cent), those from 21 to 30 years old (26.2 per cent) while victims under 20 years old, 1.5 per cent.

Mohd Kamaruddin added that during the period, 5,527 Macau Scam cheating cases were recorded by the department involving a total loss of RM327,910, 835.05.

A total 2,466 cases were recorded in 2019 with losses of RM121.85 million, 2,247 cases in 2020 (RM172.7 million) while 814 cases were reported from January to June this year (RM33.3 million), he added.

In this regard, he said communication among family members is crucial to channel information and to keep each other alert of the latest cheating modus operandi.

He said children who were directly exposed to information on the social media should inform their parents to be aware of the current situation.