Greed is the reason why M'sians fall prey to investment scams

GEORGE TOWN: Greed was the number one cause of why some one million Malaysians lost more than RM5 billion this year to the dubious money game investment scams, said a leading criminologist.
Assoc Prof Dr P. Sundramoorthy, who lectures at the University Sains Malaysia (USM) School of Social Studies, said that research on the matter has unveiled greed as the main cause while to a lesser degree naiveness also played a part.
In the latest press release on the money game scourge in the country, Bukit Aman's Federal Commercial Crime Division director Comm Datuk Amar Singh singled out that white collar crimes have risen by 9.3% this year compared to last year.
And it was mostly driven by the money game investment fraud cases where more than a million Malaysians have lost over RM5 billion in the process of trying to get rich fast.
Another noteworthy scam was the "Macau scam" cases where fraudsters hijack the fixed line telephone numbers of important public institutions such as Bank Negara and Bukit Aman to fool the victims into believing that there was something amiss with their savings accounts in commercial banks.
They tricked the victims into parting with their money, and in big amounts. As of last month, Bukit Aman reported 2,215 Macau scam cases.
Although the police have closed down 13 operators of money game ventures, the damage done was substantial to the economy as some RM5 billion was siphoned out to illegal ventures where tax was unpaid and there was no accountability, said Sundramoorthy.
In most cases, the victims must shoulder most of the blame when it comes to investment scams.
According to Sundramoorthy, common sense must prevail if they receive dubious callers on the other line.
"Once something suspicious appears, stop entertaining the callers.Go ahead and lodge police reports and double check all transactions. Nobody encourages large cash exchanges to be done over phones or computers. Go to the sources."
Sundramoorthy also disputed the figures in news reports that 25% of the police force has started to take narcotics.
"It is too high of a number. I think it translates to one in four policemen who are drug users or addicts. It is an alarming figure if proven to be true. I have communicated with the senior Bukit Aman officers to seek clarifications and I am made to understand that the figures provided by the media may be inaccurate," Sundramoorthy said.
He also urged the newly appointed Penang CPO Comm Datuk A. Thaiveegan to organise more people-centric campaigns to endear the force to the people.
Penang is a diversified state so the police need to find new ways for community policing to be effective, he noted.