Ahsmon explains the modus operandi of the suspects during the press conference. — Photo by Rusnan Mustafa
KUCHING (Aug 12): Police here have identified 26 suspects who are believed to be actively involved in e-commerce website scams.
Kuching police chief ACP Ahsmon Bajah told a press conference today that the majority of the suspects are not located in Kuching or Sarawak.
“However, we have a team led by the district’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department to track them for the arrests,” said Ahsmon.
He said the investigations will be conducted under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
Ahsmon said such scam cases have increased since the start of the Movement Control Order as the people are unable to go out and shop physically.
Kuching police recorded 61 e-commerce website scam cases involving losses amounting to RM403,386 between January and June this year.
Prior to the lockdown in 2019, they recorded only six such cases involving losses amounting to RM237,280.
Between 2019 and June 2021, Kuching police received 79 reports on e-commerce website scams involving losses amounting to RM729,000.
Ahsmon believes the number of victims and losses would be much higher if more scam victims came forward to lodge a police report.
On the modus operandi of the suspects, Ahsmon said they would operate on e-commerce platforms, social media platforms, and online chat applications.
For major e-commerce platforms, he said the scammers would begin by actually sending the products that their customers have ordered.
Once they have achieved a few sales and gotten reviews from customers, the scammers would start to manoeuvre and cheat their victims, he said.
“The scammers would also sometimes create fake profiles to rate and give good reviews for their online store. This is to gain the trust and confidence of customers, who will end up as their victims,” said Ahsmon.
Another red flag, he said would be when a seller has products at a “too good to be true” price or discounts to grab the attention of potential victims.
He added the victims would only realise that they have been scammed after they have transferred money to the scammer’s bank account and been given a fake tracking number for their parcel.