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SIBU – Police have busted a group purchasing and renting automated teller machine (ATM) cards from local communities for use by syndicates carrying out online fraud activities following the arrest of its leader.
Sibu district police chief Zulkipli Suhaili said the leader of the “Jason” group, a local man identified as Jason @ Ah Long, 31, was arrested by the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) of the Sibu district police headquarters yesterday.
He said that as a result of intelligence carried out since June, the arrest of the group leader was made after two local male suspects were detained on December 14 on suspicion of purchasing ATM cards for the syndicate.
“Following the arrest of all the suspects, we seized 13 ATM cards, 16 SIM cards, one identification card of a woman, six handphones, and one Perodua Axia car,” he told a media conference, here today.
He said the group leader would recruit agents among locals to find those willing to rent or sell their bank accounts.
“The accounts will be rented or sold for between RM400 and RM500 depending on the type of account and the bank,” he said.
According to him, further inspections of the seized phones and checks through the Commercial Crime Intelligence System found the group to be involved in nine cases involving 11 other bank accounts with a transaction value of RM175,013.99.
As a preventive measure, he advised the public not to hand over or provide account information to any party for monetary profit.
The public can check with the nearest police station or at semakmule.rmp.gov.my, the CCID Infoline at 013-211-1222, the CCID Response Centre at 03-2610-1559 03-2610-1599, the Facebook page CyberCrimeAlertRMP, or the National Scam Response Centre at 997. – Bernama, December 21, 2022