Owen Walker May 27, 2025 – 11.53am https://www.afr.com/world/asia/rich-and-naive-why-singapore-is-engulfed-in-scams-20250527-p5m2g4 Singapore | Singaporean actor Laurence Pang had always told himself to stay alert for scams, particularly online, but when he met a young Filipina woman called Mika on a dating website, he happily engaged in conversation with her. Over the course of several months, Mika convinced Pang, who has appeared in popular sitcoms over a long career, to invest nearly $S40,000 ($48,060) of cryptocurrency into an e-commerce venture. Scams have become so widespread that Singapore’s government has even discussed corporal punishment for offenders. Bloomberg But when he was unable to access his investment, he asked for a face-to-face call with Mika, only to discover that the person on the video bore little resemblance to the photos on Mika’s profile. “Like many people in my age group, I am used to receiving funny-looking messages,” said the 78-year-old. “But this was much more subtle.” Pang is just one of tens of thousands of Singaporeans to fall foul of scams last year, who lost a total of $S1.1 billion, according to police, a 70 per cent increase on the previous year. The true figure could be even higher, according to the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, which estimates that more than two-thirds of Singaporean victims did not report their experience. This is a small part of a global criminal enterprise worth an estimated $US1 trillion ($1.5 trillion), but Singaporeans, affluent, digitally advanced and compliant, are particularly vulnerable to these scams. As one person involved in the recovery of assets put it: “They are rich and naive”. Huge scam centres operate in Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos, often staffed by people who are themselves victims of human trafficking. “Vast south-east Asian call centres are where much of this activity originates,” said Nick Court, assistant director of financial crime at Interpol, which identifies the region as the hotbed for romance, impersonation and phishing scams. For the past two years, Singaporeans have been among the biggest scam victims worldwide. In 2023, they lost the most money of any country at $US4031 each, compared with second-placed Switzerland at $US3767 and third-placed Austria at $US3484. While the figure fell in 2024, the number of scam cases reported to Singaporean police rose 10 per cent on the previous year to 51,501. Corporal punishment as deterrent Scams have become so widespread that Singapore’s government has even discussed corporal punishment for offenders. “We believe in caning as a strong deterrent,” said Loretta Yuen, chair of the fraud committee at the Association of Banks in Singapore. “It’s a deterrent, but there is also a sense of revenge to it.” While the majority of incidents involved losses of less than $S2000, thousands of victims have handed over their life savings to fraudsters, who often pose as bank employees or even public officials. Common deceptions include e-commerce scams, job scams, romance scams, government official impersonation scams, malware-enabled scams and business email compromise scams. In more than 80 per cent of reported cases in Singapore, the victims are manipulated into transferring money or crypto assets themselves. Increasingly, scammers are using artificial intelligence and deepfake videos. The Monetary Authority of Singapore in March warned of scammers using AI tools to impersonate regulatory officials and instruct victims to transfer money from corporate bank accounts. The fact that Singapore’s banks have invested heavily in improving their digital capabilities can mean that money transfers through the system and into criminals’ hands too fast to be caught. As a result, some banks are now trying to introduce more “friction” into the system by delaying transfers and putting in more checks and balances. It typically takes about 30 minutes for criminals to transfer stolen funds out of the Singaporean banking system. “By the time it comes to the banks, the victims are already under such a heavy spell that it’s very hard for us to stop them from making the transfers – especially in romance, investment and government impersonation scams,” said Yuen, who is also head of legal and compliance at OCBC, one of Singapore’s biggest banks. Most victims in Singapore are contacted through Meta-owned Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, authorities say. Meta said it was investing in new technology to remove scam content from its platforms. It added that since the beginning of 2024, it had detected and disrupted more than 7 million accounts linked to scam centres in places such as Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines. But even the police initiatives to combat scams are being hijacked by fraudsters. There were more than 1500 reported cases of scammers impersonating government officials last year, police said. In some cases, scammers have called victims, pretending to be police officers from the Anti-Scam Centre scam itself – a hoax whose success rests in part on Singaporeans’ compliance with authorities. Reflecting on his case, Pang regrets not spotting warning signs, such as receiving calls from people claiming to be from the Philippines-based e-commerce company but with Japanese phone numbers. Pang believes the woman he was communicating with was being coerced, as she was wary of showing him around her room when they arranged a video call. “The most important thing to remember is that any time money or crypto is mentioned, it is a massive red flag,” he said. “You can be sure at that point that it is a scam.” Financial Times