Selangor Police: Amendments to the law needed to effectively deal with online fraud cases

SHAH ALAM - Provisions of the law on online fraud cases must be drafted in accordance with technological advances to ensure justice is served effectively to offenders.

Selangor Police chief Datuk Arjunaidi Mohamed said existing laws were less effective in dealing with online fraud cases.

“The law in dealing with online fraud comes under Section 415 to Section 420 of the Penal Code.

“The most frequently used section is Section 420 which carries a prison sentence of not more than 10 years and a fine.

"However, the definition of 'fraud' in this law refers to a physical face-to-face meeting between the victims and the alleged offender,'' he said.

Arjunaidi explained that the definition of "fraud" within the law was drafted before there were online fraud cases.

"So when these provisions were enacted, it gave us the challenge to overcome problems in fraud cases as the provisions of the law are not in tandem with times.

"So to effectively deal with these crimes, there needs to be a new provision in the Penal Code to deal with online fraud cases and facilitate the burden of proof towards these cases,'' he said.

He also added that such laws will give more power to authorities especially the police in enforcing the law.

“It will give a wider range to the police to arrest, investigate and prosecute the criminal mastermind that is hiding behind mule bank accounts.

Arjunaidi said, from January to March there were 966 cases of fraud cases in the state.

"Out of that number, a total of 731 cases are online fraud cases involving a loss of RM46 million, compared to 235 conventional fraud cases which are 75.67 per cent.

"If the cases are not eradicated, it will negatively impact the public and the country's economy,'' he said.

He explained that fraud cases involved methods such as offering non-existent investments or loans, love scams, Macau scams, phone scams, as well as purchases, sales or services which do not exist.

According to him, scams may vary but the basic modus operandi is the same as scammers use social mediums such as WhatsApp, Telegram, WeChat and Facebook to connect and deceive victims.