Online scam losses surge to RM2.97b in 2025, says Home Ministry as fraud trend worsens across Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, June 24 — The value of losses due to online fraud crimes at the national level has jumped drastically from RM1.57 billion in 2024 to RM2.97 billion in 2025 and reached RM830 million for the first five months of this year.

The Home Ministry (KDN) said according to the comparison of various modus operandi, non-existent investments consistently recorded the largest losses with a record of RM848.62 million in 2024, jumping to RM1.46 billion in 2025 and RM361.63 million this year.

According to KDN, the trend was closely followed by telecommunications crime which recorded RM497.12 million (2024), RM802.47 million (2025) and RM235.63 million (as of May 2026), while love scams continued to record losses of RM45.87 million (2024), RM47.44 million (2025) and RM17.76 million for the early period of this year.

From a geographical aspect, he said Selangor and Kuala Lumpur continued to record the highest losses, with Selangor jumping from RM446.16 million (2024) to RM986.79 million (2025), while Kuala Lumpur increased from RM293.30 million (2024) to RM782.86 million (2025).

“States with other economic focus such as Johor, Penang, and Perak also recorded significant year-on-year increases between 2024 and 2025 while Sabah and Sarawak also exhibited a similar trend of losses and increased to more than RM110 million in 2025,” said KDN in a written reply posted on the Parliament portal today.

The ministry was responding to a question from Datuk Seri Dr Ronald Kiandee (PN-Warisan) on the trend of losses due to online fraud crimes in the past three years by case and state categories, the success rate of recovery of victims’ money, as well as measures taken to improve the effectiveness of detection, freezing and returning funds to victims.

The Ministry of Home Affairs stressed its commitment to combating online crimes by strengthening the operation of the National Scam Response Centre (NSRC) which operates 24 hours a day by taking swift action through freezing bank accounts and transaction restrictions.

Since the establishment of NSRC in 2022, a total of RM32.49 million in fraud victim funds has been successfully seized and a total of RM10.9 million was returned to the victims.

“Based on statistics from 2022 to 2025, the seized money amounted to RM25.2 million with 29 per cent or RM7.3 million of which was successfully returned to the victims, while for the period January to May 2026, a total of RM7.25 million in funds was seized with RM3.57 million or 49 per cent returned to the victims.

“The increase in the percentage of funds returned proves that the function of NSRC as a national scam response centre is becoming more effective and is increasingly trusted by the people,” according to the ministry. — Bernama