SEREMBAN: Negeri Sembilan police received 97 reports involving the hacking of Telegram accounts to commit fraud in the past six months.
Negeri Sembilan Commercial Crime Investigation Department (JSJK) Supt Aibee Ab Ghani(pix) said the hacked accounts of the text messaging application were used by suspects to connect with victims’ contacts and family members for the purpose of borrowing money.
He said the suspects would then provide their account numbers for the victims to transfer the money.
“The modus operandi is that the victim receives a message from a contact via Facebook asking to click on the telegram account link provided and the victim is then asked to ‘log in’ to the link.
“Next, the victim will receive a WhatsApp message allegedly from a contact who uses another phone number telling him or her to include the suspect in the Telegram group. The victim will then receive a five-digit code number from Telegram and will be asked to send the code back to his contact,“ he said in a statement here today.
Aibee said a total of 32 investigation papers were opened with losses amounting to RM114,150 from early 2021 until February this year.
He said the police had identified 55 accounts of various local banks that had been used by the syndicate to hoodwink their victims.
“Based on investigations, it is believed to involve syndicates operating overseas based on the money transfers abroad after the local transfers were done,” he said.
He said the case was being investigated under Section 419 of the Penal Code and Section 4 (1) (a) of the Computer Crimes Act.
Aibee advised the public to be wary when receiving such links and never to pass any code number received through their phones as their accounts could be hacked by criminals.-Bernama
