KUCHING: Sarawak tops the country’s statistics in terms of commercial crime cases charged in court last year.
It is also considered the best in terms of solving cases. There were 804 cases or 45.24% of cases charged in court.
Sarawak Head of Commercial Crime, Supt Mustafa Kamal said the department will go out to solve such crimes as many of the victims lost their hard-earned and life-long savings.
He expressed gladness that there is a dip in most of the commercial crimes last year compared to 2017 from Jan 1 to Dec 31.
When speaking to New Sarawak Tribune Mustafa said the drop in commercial crimes included cyber crime, forgery, counterfeit money, moneylender Act and possession of illegal VCD/DVD.
For cyber crimes, 71 cases were reported in 2017 against 55 last year; while for counterfeit money, there were 29 against 24 last year; while for moneylender Act there were 69 against 46 cases and for illegal possession of DVD/CD, there were 42 against 11 cases. Others also dropped by a case from six in 2017.
The ones that increased were cheating from 1,045 to 1311 cases, while there were 298 CBT cases in 2017 to 302 cases last year. Property crimes remained the same at 14 cases.
In the monetary terms, a total of RM45,077, 246 was lost in 2017 compared to RM52,677,266.82 in 2018 from Jan 1 to Dec 31.
CBT cases involved an amount of RM16,372,788.24 in 2017 compared to RM22,876,391.52 last year while property crimes case recorded losses of RM119,732.24 in 2017 compared to 6,503,603.28. Cyber crimes recorded losses of RM891,695.64 in 2017 and RM1,021,690.24 last year.
RM5,911,490.24 was reported as loss due to forgery in 2017 compared to RM1,200,011.06 last year.
Fake currencies amounted to RM20,550.20 in 2017 compared to RM4,400 last year.
The cases of DVD/CD seized were valued at RM2,455 in 2017 and only RM589 was recorded last year.
Other cases reported involved an amount of RM550,000 in 2017 and nil last year.
