KUALA TERENGGANU: Terengganu police received 108 reports on commercial crimes in a week from March 31 until yesterday, involving losses totalling RM662,903.
Terengganu police chief Datuk Mazli Mazlan said out of these reports, 20 investigation papers have been opened, with four involving online jewellery purchase fraud totalling RM126,017 in losses.
“The first victim is a 29-year-old female trader who was interested in buying two gold bracelets on the TikTok application priced at RM512 but was deceived into making 20 online transactions for various reasons resulting in a loss of RM106,012.
“The next case involves a 38-year-old male employee of a private company. The victim came across a Telegram advertisement for two gold bracelets on sale at RM3,000. However, the victim was deceived and suffered a loss of RM8,000,“ he said in a statement today.
Mazli said two more cases also used the same modus operandi where victims saw gold sales ads on TikTok and were required to click on a link before being connected to an ‘Ar Rahnu Gold Sales’ group on Telegram.
He said the victims were initially asked to make payments for the purchase of gold at a cheap offer.
“However, after the payment was made, the victims were instructed to make several more transactions for various reasons including taxes, fee payments, collateral letter payments and security deposit payments, all of which were unreasonable for any purchase,“ he said.
Mazli said the state Commercial Crimes Investigation Department received 1,338 reports of cheating cases in the first three months of this year, with 267 investigation papers opened.
He said this is a drop of 131 reports compared to the 1,469 reports received in the same period last year.
“The public is advised to be wary of offers for cheap sales from social media. Please verify the account and phone numbers through the official Semak Mule portal, as well as check the existence of business owners in the SSM MyData before making any payments.
“Anyone who falls victim to such scams should report to the nearest police station,“ he said.
