YDH CP Dato’ Seri A. Thaiveegan delivered a Luncheon Talk entitled “Contemporary Issues & Challenges on Cyber and Telco Crimes: Insights from a Police Commissioner” to an enthralled audience at Lantai Seri, KOMCA, USM on 20^th December 2018. It was a very entertaining and educational session where Cyber Crimes, Internet Scam, Love Scam and Macau Scam were covered pretty extensively to the crowd comprising of Academia, NGOs, Industry (Security) stalwarts / PENSEC Members, RMP Penang Head of Departments, OCPDs, Senior Police Officers, Press and Media. He reminded the crowd present that such scams hit corporates, professionals, young intellects and housewives. He iterated that Crime afflicted through the Cyber world was cross boundary and ubiquitous. Fraudsters lurking under fake identifications are able to convince would be victims in very convincing manner. In a way, it is a new form of terrorizing victims through threats of being incriminated, more often than not for purported crimes that they are not even involved in. Kudos to MCPF Penang, RMP Penang Contingent and USM for once again collaborating together to bring forth yet another contemporary topic that has gained media traction in recent years to the attendees.

In his Welcoming Speech prior to the Luncheon Talk per se, Associate Professor Dr. P. Sundramoorthy, Director of Security, USM and close advocate of MCPF Penang shared the challenges being faced by Crime and Policing Research Teams from the Academia. He lamented that Official Data were being ‘censored’ and that this in turn did not help at all to alleviate the ‘negative and inaccurate perception’ on the state of Crime in the country. Dr. P. Sundramoorthy reminded all present that the classification of crimes should be viewed from not just an ethnicity point of view but also from the wider realm of socio-economic, income levels, urban / semi-urban and rural demographics. He also touched on topics related to global trends on decriminalization of drug addicts and the highly debatable focus of ending death sentences.

MCPF Penang SLC and DLCs were well represented at this Luncheon Talk. In Attendance were MCPF Penang Chairman Y.Bhg. Dato’ Seri Syed Jaafar Syed Ali, Deputy Vice-Chairman / MCPF EXCO / SPS DLC Chairman Y.Bhg. Dato’ K. Pulayantran, Vice-Chairman (II) Rosli Mohamed Ali, Treasurer Harikumar Katherasen, MCPF EXCO / SLC Member Y.Bhg. Lt. Col. (PAB) Dato’ Ong Poh Eng, SLC Member / South-West DLC Chairman (and Master of Ceremony for the Event) James Mohan, MCPF SLC Member / North-East DLC Chairman JM Tan, SLC Member / SPU Chairman Munusamy Muniandy,  SLC Member / North-East DLC Vice-Chairman (II) Lt. Col. (PAB) Felix Chuah Gim Chuan, SLC Member / SPS DLC Secretary Capt. (PAB) Paramguru Balan Moghan, SLC Member SLC Member / North-East DLC Member Ridzuan Md Zain, SLC Member / North-East DLC Treasurer Joseph Sawaremuthu,  SLC Member Yazid bin Razali, South-West DLC Secretary Velayit Hussein, South-West DLC Treasurer Ponnalagu Arumugam, North-East DLC Secretary Ronald Cecil Aeria, SPT DLC Member Victor Lim Kok Hooi and South-West DLC Member Capt. (PAB) Chang Gim Hooi . Also spotted in the crowd was ex-MCPF Penang Treasurer and PENSEC Member Rahumatullah Ibrahim.