KUALA LUMPUR, March 9 — The Royal Malaysian Police suspect there are victims of overseas job fraud syndicates who were rescued earlier but have since become agents of the syndicate to lure other Malaysians.
Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department (CID) director Datuk Seri Mohd Shuhaily Mohd Zain said the matter emerged from the screening of all individuals rescued in Myanmar recently.
“When we screen them at the airport, we realised these people have gone out to other countries in a way or context that is not the same as before.
“When we call and investigate, the answers given by the victims appeared to have been ‘already trained’,” he said during a press conference after the CID Community Engagement Session at the TTDI Community Centre today.
To overcome the problem, the police have alerted the Home Ministry of the situation to assess the procedure for issuing travel documents for victims of job fraud syndicates abroad.
Shuhaily also revealed that 16 individuals have been identified as having returned to the country when they were involved in the employment fraud syndicate before.
“They are not scared with what happened, thefore our guess is that these people are aware of what they are doing,” he said.
Previously, Bukit Aman Criminal Investigation Department (Investigation/Legal) deputy director Datuk Rusdi Mohd Isa said 326 Malaysians who were victims of the overseas job offer fraud syndicate were successfully rescued from 2021 to February 23 this year, while 133 people are still stranded in overseas.
Most of the victims were taken to countries like Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Laos, and based on research 73 per cent worked as scammers, 12 per cent as customer service workers, eight per cent worked in casinos, and seven per cent carried out various jobs like cooks and so on.
— Bernama
