KUCHING: Housewives, the jobless, students and senior citizens are among the target groups who are often used as mule accounts by online financial fraud syndicates such as Macau Scam including Love Scam, Parcel Scam and so on.
Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) Kuching office chief Mohd Irman Mohd Din said the syndicates usually obtained mule accounts, also known as surrogate accounts, by deceiving those who needed extra incomes and had low levels of financial literacy.
“Victims are easily deceived by lucrative wage offers reaching thousands of ringgit to open or hand over bank accounts for the use of third parties.
“Most of them are offered wages of more than RM1,000 a month by syndicates to use their bank accounts,” he said in an interview yesterday.
He added that there was also a modus operandi that used job opportunities as a way to gain access to the victims’ bank accounts.
Mohd Irman explained that the victims were required to submit bank account details including the ATM card PIN numbers before being accepted to work with the mule account syndicates.
Apart from that, he said unlicensed money lending companies also tricked borrowers into handing over their bank accounts as collaterals for loans.
“But in reality, the syndicates use the borrowers’ bank accounts as mule accounts,” he said.
Mohd Irman added there were three ways for the public to avoid becoming victims of mule accounts, namely protect, report and release.
“Protect your ATM cards and personal banking information by not sharing such information with any party and report to the bank or the police if you find lost ATM cards or misuse of bank accounts.
“Refrain from colluding with parties who require you to perform suspicious activities such as making money transfers to strangers,” he said.
