The Singapore Police Force (SPF) has alerted members of the public to a variant of government officials impersonation scam (GOIS).

In a press release on Apr. 29, SPF explained that these scammers allegedly posed as SPF officers and presented a fake SPF warrant card to validate their identity in order to convince the victims that they were under investigations.

Received unsolicited calls

The victims had first received unsolicited phone calls from callers who claimed to be from the Singapore High Court.

Their calls were supposedly transferred to a "police officer", who informed them that they were being investigated for money-laundering activities.

The victims were then instructed to download messaging app, LINE or WhatsApp, for further communication with the "police officer".

Subsequently, the victims would purportedly be shown a fake SPF warrant card on the messaging platform.

For LINE, the victims would also be added into a chat group named "Reporting Platform".

The victims would then be instructed to provide their personal details and that of their family members, including bank account details.

Instructed to provide personal details

The victims were subsequently instructed to surrender money for investigations by making transfers to various bank accounts controlled by the scammers.

The victims were promised that the money transferred to these bank accounts would be returned to them upon completion of investigations.

In some cases, the victims were also asked to hand over control of their bank accounts and SingPass accounts as part of the purported investigations.

In its press release, SPF emphasised that the police will not instruct members of the public to transfer money to designated bank accounts for investigations.

Police officers will also not identify themselves with the SPF warrant card on online platforms.

Top images courtesy of SPF.