The bank accounts of innocent people frozen during police investigations into scammers' mule accounts will be unlocked within half a day, police said on Tuesday.
Police manning the hotline numbers 191 and 1559 were instructed to help by taking complaints from innocent people whose bank accounts were frozen during a scam investigation.
Police said innocent locked-account holders would need to verify they were not a part of a scam by informing police of their name, ID numbers, bank account numbers and the banks that hold their accounts.
“If their innocence is verified, frozen accounts will be unlocked within half a day. This process begins today,” the national police chief said.
He said over the past two days police had received about 1,300 complaints and unlocked around 30 accounts.
He was responding to complaints from online vendors and other people whose bank accounts were frozen by officials trying to retrieve the money scammers steal from their victims.
The officials are freezing accounts suspected of receiving money from scammers' mule accounts.
Scammers sometimes try to launder money through the accounts of innocent vendors. Many vendors have stopped accepting electronic payments via QR codes from customers for fear of being caught up in an investigation, their account locked.
