Kuala lumpur: Nearly RM1 billion in losses from online scams during the first six months of this year is a clear signal that domestic enforcement alone is no longer sufficient to curb increasingly sophisticated transnational syndicates.
According to BERNAMA News Agency, Criminologist Prof Datuk Dr P. Sundramoorthy emphasized that Malaysia must strengthen international cooperation to enable faster intelligence-sharing, money-trail tracking, and enforcement action across jurisdictions. He suggested that Malaysia should seriously consider joining the International Anti-Fraud Coalition, which China is expected to launch in September and which is expected to involve more than 40 countries.
"If the coalition provides an effective mechanism for intelligence-sharing, operational coordination, and money-trail tracking, Malaysia should seriously consider joining it," he stated. On Aug 18, Communications Minister Datuk Seri Fahmi Fadzil reported that online scam losses in Malaysia reached RM958 million between January and June this year.
Sundramoorthy mentioned that cooperation with foreign agencies is becoming increasingly urgent as scam syndicates now operate as organized criminal networks exploiting technology and digital infrastructure across multiple countries. "The victims may be in Malaysia, the scammers in another country, the digital servers in a third country, while the money is transferred through several countries," he explained.
He further noted that enforcement action within a single jurisdiction risks disrupting only part of the criminal chain without reaching the masterminds behind the operations. "If investigations focus only on Malaysia, we may arrest the middlemen but fail to identify the real masterminds," he added.
The international coalition, set to be launched at the Global Public Security Cooperation Forum 2026 in Lianyungang, China, aims to coordinate action against cross-border telecommunications fraud through joint investigations and coordinated enforcement.
Sundramoorthy highlighted the importance of the speed of information-sharing between countries as proceeds from scams could be moved through several layers of international accounts within a very short time. He cited previous cross-border cooperation involving China and several countries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia, which resulted in the arrest and repatriation of more than 20,000 scam suspects this year.
However, he emphasized that the true measure of success should not be limited to the number of arrests or the value of money recovered, but rather the ability of the international system to dismantle the entire ecosystem supporting such criminal networks.
On geopolitical considerations, Sundramoorthy stated that ideological differences between countries should not hinder cooperation against transnational crime, provided Malaysia's sovereignty, laws, and data protection are respected. "Scammers do not wait for diplomatic disputes to be resolved before moving their money or operations. Malaysia's participation should be assessed based on security and crime-fighting interests, not geopolitics alone," he concluded.