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Posted on 26 February 2023 | 2,921 views | 11 comments
A total of 358 men and 142 women, aged between 16 and 76, were rounded up to assist in investigations for their suspected involvement as scammers or money mules.
It was one of two island-wide operations conducted by the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) and the seven police land divisions between Feb 10 and 24.
The 500 suspects are believed to be involved in more than 1,712 cases of scams, comprising mainly investment scams, job scams, e-commerce scams, phishing scams, loan scams, and government officials impersonation scams, where victims reportedly lost over $8.6 million.
Police investigations are ongoing for the alleged offences of cheating, money laundering or providing payment services without a licence.
In the second operation, the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) of CAD and six banks conducted live interventions by analysing the fund flows of more than 80 bank accounts, which were surfaced in investment and job scam reports.
The six banks are CIMB, DBS, HSBC, OCBC, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB.
The ASC, seven police land divisions and banks worked together to engage unsuspecting victims who had been transferring money into these scam-tainted bank accounts.
More than 680 unsuspecting victims were alerted that they could have fallen prey to scams and were advised to stop any further monetary transfers.
Many of these victims only realised that they had been deceived after they were engaged and convinced by the police.
Scam proceeds amounting to more than $76,000 were seized and the police further prevented these scam victims from financial losses amounting to more than $260,000.
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weehingthong 