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Joseph Sipalan

Being a Malaysian Indian is apparently a good indication that you are unlikely to fall for a scam. Police have found that potential victims from the ethnic group are more than likely to frustrate scammers with a barrage of questions.
Malaysians lost an estimated 2.7 billion ringgit (US$684 million) to online scams last year alone, according to data from cybersecurity firm Fortinet Malaysia – a 76 per cent increase from the previous year – as syndicates adopt increasingly sophisticated methods that exploit digital payment systems to redirect transactions.
The losses correlated with a sharp spike in online scam content. On Tuesday, the communications ministry revealed that over 98,500 scam-related posts were taken down in 2025, significantly higher than the 63,652 posts removed a year earlier.
But the loss was lower among the Indian community, according to police in Penang state.

Data gathered by the Penang Commercial Crime Department (CCID) found that just a little over 7 per cent or 381 of the 5,090 scam cases reported in the island state last year involved Indian victims despite being equally targeted by scammers across racial groups.
This was because they would often “respond with a barrage of questions”, Penang CCID deputy chief Pang Meng Tuck said, as quoted by local Chinese newspaper Sin Chew Daily.
“Say a scammer tries to convince an Indian victim of a kidnapping that has never happened. The victim will ask: who was kidnapped? Where? When? Why?” Pang told a forum on scam prevention on Saturday. “The questions keep coming until the scammer just gives up and moves on.”
The questions keep coming until the scammer just gives up and moves on
Pang Meng Tuck, Penang CCID deputy chief
The data showed that ethnic Chinese accounted for the largest group with 2,299 reported cases last year, followed by ethnic Malays with 2,041 cases. The remaining 369 cases were attributed to other ethnic groups living in the state.
Deep class divide
Ethnic Indians, who account for about 7 per cent of Malaysia’s population of 34 million, hold an outsize representation in the country’s professional fields, with many becoming prominent lawyers, doctors and journalists.
But the community also suffers from a deep class divide. Nearly half of the country’s 2.6 million ethnic Indians are in the bottom 40 per cent of income earners, hobbled by generational poverty going all the way back to the British colonial era.


Malaysian authorities have been ramping up efforts to clamp down on cross-border scam operations in recent years. A growing number of scam compounds have been detected across the country as syndicates spread out to other jurisdictions following crackdowns in the notoriously lawless border regions of Cambodia and Myanmar.
Malacca Police on Tuesday arrested a total of 45 foreign nationals from China, Vietnam and Indonesia in separate raids on two call centres offering what police said were non-existent sex services, love scams and fake investment schemes.
Dozens of Malaysians are also reportedly ensnared in scam operations every year, typically kidnapped by syndicate operatives in neighbouring Thailand. Lured by the promise of high-paying jobs, they end up forced to work in hi-tech scam compounds in Cambodia or Myanmar.


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Despite all races being equally targeted, ethnic Indians lost the least because they would keep questioning until the scammers gave up


Despite all races being equally targeted, ethnic Indians lost the least because they would keep questioning until the scammers gave up.


Malaysian Indians least likely to be scammed as they ask too many questions: police

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Despite all races being equally targeted, ethnic Indians lost the least because they would keep questioning until the scammers gave up

Despite all races being equally targeted, ethnic Indians lost the least because they would keep questioning until the scammers gave up