THE world is becoming a scamland from Myanmar to Mexico, as one newspaper puts it. You can’t blame it because scams just refuse to go away. There are two reasons why this is so.
Firstly, scammers have made swindling a science. Today, it is an industry as big as the illegal drugs trade, if not bigger. If the Global Anti-Scam Alliance is right, scammers had siphoned away more than US$1.03 trillion globally last year, topping many nations’ gross domestic product.
Scammers are so rich that they are able to “buy” government officials just to look the other way. According to the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a defence think tank, Myanmar is a scamland gone wild.
There the military junta is believed to allegedly permit, or worse, facilitate scam operations to enrich itself and its military allies, says ASPI. “Instead of just one actor orchestrating the scams, a multitude of actors are involved, particularly non-state groups allied with the Myanmar junta, along with the mainly Chinese criminal syndicates that directly run the facilities.”
Media reports say scam centres in Myanmar, especially along the borders of Thailand, are expanding by 5.5 hectares a month. The centres are said to hold 100,000 people trafficked by the syndicate from around the region.
In February, the Thai government cut power, Internet and water supply to border areas in its effort to put an end to scam centres that it considers as security threats. But being “innovative” as the scammers are, they are probably having their own power supply and using smuggled Internet transmitters.
The Thai authorities are said to have intercepted many of them. Technology companies must do more to stop their equipment from being used for illegal activities.
Secondly, there are plenty of gullible victims to exploit. If the first reason isn’t one we can control, this second reason is one we can. A classic case involves a teacher in Maran, Pahang, who on June 16 was duped of RM230,000. All that the scammer posing as an insurance officer had to do was to tell her that she was a suspect in a money-laundering case.
To add believability, he then passed the phone to a few people who posed as a police officer, deputy public prosecutor and a Bank Negara Malaysia officer. She was duped into pawning her jewellery, taking out a bank loan and depositing all her savings to avoid arrest.
Fear was a factor in her losing her sense of the situation. And fear is what the scammers wanted her to feel. Allegations such as what she was being told are no doubt serious, but she should have paused for a moment to ask why an insurance officer was calling about money laundering.
It is at that point the teacher should have ended the call. Also no government officers would make calls such as the one the teacher received.
As advised by the police, potential victims should drop by at the nearest police station to verify the calls or contact the National Scam Centre before transferring any money.
The best is not to answer unknown calls. If they do answer, they must learn how to be doubters, not the gullible type the scammers want them to be.
© New Straits Times Press (M) Bhd
