Around midday on September 10, commercial crime investigators from the state and central districts teamed up to raid two hideouts in Melaka Raya, Malaysia. Police caught three Chinese men on the spot, aged between 29 and 37. Local reports say the crew had been renting the units since early August, running an online scam hub from inside.
The playbook was the usual routine: blasting fake job offers across TikTok, baiting victims into liking ads or doing in-game tasks on something called "Aether Swap" with promises of quick commission payouts. The operators took home around 3,000 ringgit a month, paid out through WeChat Pay. Inside the units, officers seized laptops, 23 smartphones, routers, logbooks, and two sets of wooden racks used to hold the phones. All three men have been remanded until September 14 while police dig deeper under Section 420 of the Penal Code for cheating.
Behind drawn curtains in ordinary, quiet rentals like these, dozens of phones hum day and night, quietly farming clicks and churning out traps. The crew probably figured tucking themselves away in a corner of a tourist town would keep them under the radar—until the cops came through the door.
