KUALA LUMPUR, 19 March 2009: Fifty-five people were arrested for sending out fraudulent text messages between 2006 and last year, the Dewan Rakyat was told today.
Deputy Home Minister Datuk Chor Chee Heung said of those arrested, 43 were men.
He said 728 fraudulent text messages were reported to the police last year involving losses of RM1.842 million.
In 2007 the number of cases were 965 with losses of RM2.155 million and 318 cases with losses of RM548,725 in 2006.
“Between 2006 and last year, police crippled text message scams targeting Akademi Fantasia (AF4), Maxis, Celcom, Digi, Petronas, Shell, Astro, Audisi KDI 4, Power Root and Gang Starz,” he said in reply to Er Teck Hwa (DAP-Bakri) who wanted to know the number of telephone frauds and the measures taken by the government to address them.
Chor said police were working with telecommunication companies to contain the activities apart from sending reminders to consumers and carrying out awareness campaign on the existence of such fraud.
He said police were also working with their Indonesian counterparts as most of the fraudulent text messages were sent from the neighbouring country.
Chor also said that investigations showed that about 99% of the numbers used to send the text messages were registered under false names and addresses. — Bernama
