Fooled by two scammers posing as officials from the authorities, a 79-year-old woman was on the verge of losing more than S$260,000 to the fraudsters on Dec. 5.
Thankfully, the suspicious transaction was flagged up by a Standard Chartered bank staff, who worked with the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) to shut down the scam before it could materialise.
The victim was notified of the scheme and managed to get her money back, a Dec. 8 police news release stated.
Told to send scammers S$260,000 to "assist in investigations"
According to the police, the 79-year-old victim was contacted by the first scammer in September 2023.
The person claimed to be a bank officer and lied to her that her account had been frozen for investigations.
The fraudster then transferred her to a second scammer, who impersonated a Singapore Police Force official.
This second scammer instructed the victim to report her whereabouts four times daily, and told her not to divulge details about the investigation.
In November, the "police official" instructed her to sell her Unit Trust investments held with Standard Chartered Bank, which amounted to more than S$260,000.
She was then told to transfer the money to a third-party bank account provided by the scammer, on the pretext of assisting in investigations.
The woman complied.
Fraud detected
At this point, the transaction was detected by Standard Chartered Bank senior relationship manager for priority clients, Tan Kah Boon.
Photo from SPF
Tan flagged up the victim's unusual banking behaviour, and her outgoing transfers to a suspected mule's bank account.
He urgently escalated the case to the bank's anti-fraud team, who contacted ASC about the matter.
The two teams worked together to trace the flow of funds, which allowed them to identify and freeze all the scammer-controlled accounts.
This prevented the woman from losing over S$260,000 to the scammers.
ASC officers also alerted the victim about the deceptive scheme she had nearly fallen prey to.
Photo from SPF
The police stated that the timely intervention was a result of the bank's "rigorous emphasis" on anti-scam trainings for its front-line teams, and their close collaboration with the ASC to combat scams.
A common scam variant: Police
The police also alerted members of the public that this is a type of government official impersonation scam, where scammers impersonate government officials and accuse victims of being involved in criminal or money laundering activities overseas.
This is how the scams will take place.
Firstly, scammers impersonating a bank officer would allege that the victims have outstanding credit card charges that are linked to criminal or money laundering activities.
The scammer will then transfer the call to another scammer claiming to be a government official, who would inform the victims that they were under investigation for such illegal activities.
Following which, victims could be instructed to share their bank account details, make transfers to a third-party account purportedly to assist with investigations, open new bank accounts, sign fake documents, or report their whereabouts to the scammers.
Members of the public are advised to adopt precautionary measures such as setting up security features and transaction limits for internet banking transactions, telling friends or family about the potential scams, as well as reporting suspicious numbers on WhatsApp and Telegram.
They can also call the Anti-Scam Helpline at 1800-722-6688 for help, or dial '999' for urgent police assistance.
You can find more information on the various precautionary measures here.
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Top image for illustrative purposes from Matthew Chia on Google Maps.