Victims of scams perpetrated by government officials in Singapore lost at least US$6.7 million in September alone, with at least 100 cases reported, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) said in a joint statement.
Authorities explain how the scam works:
“In this variant, the victim first receives an unsolicited phone call from a scammer posing as a bank official, usually from DBS, OCBC, UOB or Standard Chartered Bank. The scammer informs the victim that a credit card has been issued in the victim’s name. , or that suspicious or fraudulent transactions have been detected on the victim’s bank account, and would ask the victim to confirm these financial transactions.
“If the victim denies knowledge of such transactions, the scammer would transfer the call to a second scammer who would pretend to be a government official (from SPF or MAS). These calls can sometimes be in the form of video calls with the scammers. dressed as SPF/MAS officers with fake badges, against a background with the service’s logo. The communication between the second scammer and the victim can then be moved to messaging applications such as WhatsApp forged official documents to lend credibility to their deception. The scammers would accuse the victim of being involved in criminal activities such as money laundering and ask the victim to transfer money to “security accounts” designated by the government to assist in investigations.
“Victims would only realize that they have been scammed when the scammers become unreachable or when they want to verify the status of their case with the banks or SPF.”
Learn more about the anti-scam precautions you can take.
