Asia is a big market for binary options and cryptos platforms, legit or illegal. This year, Malaysian police has received more than 650 complaints worth more than 90 million ringgits (around 18 million euro). Most of the time the scams are conducted by website owners. However, sometimes scammers used the reputation of existing brands to divert the funds to their own benefits.
13 platforms have been identified as criminal. Among them were i-Rakyat Trade, IQ Option, Global Investment and Wei Jian Zhi.
Online scammers hunted down by police in Malaysia
From The Star :
Police have classified i-Rakyat Trade as one of the top groups in the list to have been actively pursuing such an online scam. On overall statistics, Comm Saiful said between January and June 2019, the department investigated 12,462 scamming cases, with losses estimated at RM2.9bil.
“This year for the same time period, we have investigated 14,050 cases, with an estimated loss of RM930mil. Last year, the losses were higher due to the fact that we had a few high-profile cases, ” he said.Meanwhile, police busted i-Rakyat Trade in a series of raids in the Klang Valley.
In the operation carried out on Tuesday and Wednesday, police nabbed 10 people aged between 19 and 31. Comm Saiful said the group has been active since March.
“Investigations revealed the group offered four high returns for low investments ‘options’. For an investment of between RM800 and RM4,800, the returns ranged from RM10,800 to RM54,00 within two days. “The group also offered lucky draws, which included cars, vacations and electronics worth about RM100,000, ” he said in a press conference yesterday.
Social media to lure victims
To date, he said police have received 22 reports on i-Rakyat Trade with losses estimated to be around RM200,000. He said the members of the group told their victims that their money would be reinvested in the oil and gas industry. The group, he said, used social media to entice their victims.
Based on their investigations, the group members would also get commissions based on the number of people they successfully recruited to “invest” with them. Based on police records, six of the suspects nabbed were previously involved in a scratch and win scam. “These youngsters have no jobs but they have brains. Then they do things like this. And now they end up in handcuffs, ” he said.
He said police planned to use the Anti-Money Laundering, Terrorism Financing and Proceeds of Unlawful Activities Act and Prevention of Crime Act to act against them. Comm Saiful said they are looking for the mastermind behind i-Rakyat Trade. He also urged other victims of these scammers to come forward to help in the investigations.
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