DESPITE repeated warnings by police and the authorities, Sarawakians continue to fall victim to scams every day. Incredibly enough, victims include highly educated professionals living and working in cities and big towns.
This is a very disturbing trend, said state Deputy Education, Technology Innovation and Talents Development Minister Datuk Dr Annuar Rapaee.
“Even in big cities and towns, we hear of all sorts of scams happening daily,” he said.
“The authorities, including police, have been putting in great effort to try to warn the public.
“However, people continue to fall victims to job scams, investment scams and so on that promise lucrative money.
“Even highly educated professionals fall victim so easily,” Dr Annuar said at a scam awareness campaign event at Universiti Tecknologi Sarawak’s Sibu campus today.
He said that education initiatives to raise awareness need to be more comprehensive to stop people from ending up as victims, as is happening on a daily basis.
Dr Annuar said police statistics show that Sibu district records daily scam cases.
On December 13 last year, The Vibes had reported that the public at large remained gullible to online scams and allowed themselves to be easily coaxed by online cheats; despite repeated and intensive efforts by police to warn them.
Miri police chief Alexson Naga Chabu had said that there has been a marked increase of online scams classified as commercial crimes.
On July 11 last year, it was reported that Sarawakian scam victims had lost a shocking total sum of more than RM125 million to online scammers from the end of 2021 to end of 2022.
The amount made up almost half of the total amount of scammed money nationwide.
State police chief Datuk Mohd Azman Ahmad Sapri has for the past year been issuing press releases on cases of Sarawakians lodging police reports after being scammed.
Most of the victims are from Kuching, Sibu and Miri.
A number of them reported that they lost several hundred thousand ringgit via online bank transactions within a matter of days to these online scammers. – The Vibes, February 26, 2024
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