MHA to consider caning as punishment for scam-related offences & serious action against Telegram: Sun Xueling

Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling spoke in the 2025 Committee of Supply debate on Mar. 4 about the increasing number and variety of scams that Singaporeans have faced in recent years.

This included cryptocurrency scams; Sun warned the general public that the ministry's advice was to "stay clear" of crypto.

While elaborating on steps the government was undertaking to protect Singaporeans, Sun said they were considering introducing caning as a punishment for scams.

Self-Effected Transfers

Sun said that a "significant majority" of scams were "self-effected transfers" where victims are manipulated into willingly transferring money to scammers, accounting for 80 per cent of scam losses in 2024.

Victims in these cases often thought they were transferring money to friends, government officials, e-commerce sellers, or legitimate investment opportunities.

Sun warned that modern scammers were using tools such as Artificial Intelligence and that victims were often totally convinced, refusing help until it was too late.

Thus, the government introduced the Protection From Scams Bill in January 2025, allowing the Singapore Police Force (SPF) to temporarily restrict the banking transactions of individuals who were likely being scammed.

Sun described the bill as a "serious" last-resort measure to be used after all other attempts to convince an individual had failed.

It showed how far the government was going to tackle scams involving self-effected transfers.

The government is working with banks to introduce cooling-off periods for high-risk actions like increasing transaction limits or changing contact details, allowing individuals to assess their actions and authorities to step in.

It is also working with banks to strengthen scam defences by phasing out SMS one-time passwords and studying stronger authentication solutions, such as Fast Identity Online-compliant hardware tokens.

Cryptocurrencies losses

In addition, Sun warned Singaporeans against the dangers of cryptocurrency scams, saying they had increased from 10 per cent of scam losses in 2023 to 25 per cent in 2024.

Cryptocurrencies are largely unregulated, with many exchanges and wallet providers operating from overseas, outside the reach of Singapore's police.

They sometimes had anonymity features that criminals could exploit to evade capture, said Sun.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) licensed some digital payment token service providers with certain regulatory safeguards, and the government will work with them to strengthen those safeguards.

MAS has repeatedly cautioned retail investors against investing in cryptocurrencies, with Sun giving the example of a victim who lost S$125 million via a malware-enabled scam that targeted their cryptocurrency wallet.

"The risks of getting burnt is high, and should you fall victim to a scam, the chances of you getting even a single dollar back is very low."

Scam calls and SMS's

Sun reported that 20 percent of scam cases in 2024 involved scam calls or SMSes.

The government has been working with telcos to introduce features like allowing subscribers to block international calls and preemptively blocking international calls with spoofed +65 prefixes.

But scammers have moved to using local phone numbers to trick victims, and the government is responding by taking measures to tighten the ownership and abuse of local SIM cards.

In 2024, IMDA limited the number of post-paid SIM cards an individual could own, and from Jan. 1, 2025, it was an offence to register for a SIM and then sell it, possess a large number of unregistered SIM cards without legitimate reasons, or buy and sell SIM cards registered to another person.

Helping destroy lives

Sun warned that such "SIM-card mules" were not just abetting crime but were helping destroy lives; those found guilty of such offenses face penalties of up to three years imprisonment, S$10,000 in fines, or both.

"We will not hesitate to use the full range of these penalties against people who abuse SIM cards," she said.

Money mules who helped launder and transfer money out of Singapore face a similar approach, and the SPF has investigated over 8,000 individuals, of which 660 were charged in court.

Sun responded to questions about whether penalties for such crimes were still too soft, and she agreed that stiff and deterrent penalties were needed.

The Sentencing Advisory Panel had proposed significant imprisonment terms for scam facilitation offences, and courts have generally imposed jail sentences for scam-related crimes.

But Sun said that the government would consider Tan Wu Meng's suggestion that caning be prescribed for scam-related offences in recognition of their serious harm.

Self-protection against scams

Sun said the government would do what it could to combat scams, but Singaporeans needed to know how to protect themselves.

She advised Singaporeans to use the ScamShield Suite, launched in September 2024, using its resources to verify if something is a scam or report it if needed.

The government is targeting vulnerable population segments with monthly media campaigns warning them about scams.

Platform cooperation

The government is also working to improve safeguards in the online space, introducing two Codes of Practice under the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA)—the Online Communication Code and E-Commerce Code — and working with online platforms such as Meta and Carousell.

Both companies have since implemented enhanced verification against Government-issued records for some sellers and advertisers on their platforms.

This has resulted in e-commerce scams decreasing by close to 10 per cent on Carousell and 60 per cent on Facebook Marketplace.

Sun said that "robust user verification by online platforms" deterred online crimes, as criminals could not hide behind "the cloak of anonymity."

Telegram anonymity

However, one platform that concerned the government was Telegram, which prioritised and prided itself on providing users anonymity.

Scammers and criminals have exploited this anonymity to sell drugs and share sexually explicit, non-consensual videos, said Sun.

Scams on Telegram had almost doubled in 2024, and the government urged Telegram to "take the online safety of its users seriously" by adopting stronger user verification measures.

Sun said that MHA is monitoring the situation closely and will explore further measures to address scams on Telegram, including using legislative levers to "mandate compliance."

She later added, in response to a question from Vikram Nair, that the government faced issues working with Telegram and would consider taking "very serious actions" against the platform if it did not clamp down on illicit activity.

Top image via MDDI/YouTube