Scammer poses as S'pore police commissioner, asks victims to pay S$25,950 or face child pornography charges

A new scam involving child pornography has dropped.

In this iteration, the scammer poses as a police commissioner (or a former one) and informs the potential victim that they are currently being investigated for a host of charges, including child pornography.

The police have since issued a press release warning the public about the scam.

Prior to this, however, Mothership caught wind of this scam, and corresponded with the scammers over email to try to find out what their scheme was:

Interestingly enough, their reply appears to be tailored specifically to our email:

However, a quick check seems to suggest it might be AI.

For this particular case, the charges, while severe,

could apparently be mitigated with some cash.

In fact, any amount of cash appears to be fine:

After some haggling, the scammer gave us payment details for some guy in Spain, explaining that the "out-of-court settlement" would be made to Interpol.

However, we think it's best to just face the consequences:

Police advisory

In a Dec. 28 press release, the Singapore Police Force warned that they or Singapore government officials did not issue these emails.

The police would also like to reminded members of the public that Singapore government officials will never do the following over emails or phone calls:

a. Ask you to transfer money;

b. Ask you to disclose bank login details;

c. Ask you to install mobile apps from unofficial app stores; and

d. Transfer your call to the Police or any other government officials.

"Members of the public must NEVER transfer or hand over monies, cryptocurrencies or other valuables to unknown persons or to anyone whose identity you have not verified," wrote the press release.

"NEVER leave monies or valuables at a physical location for someone else to collect later. NEVER disclose your personal details to unknown persons."

Police have encouraged the public to adopt the following precautionary measures:

a. ADD – ScamShield app to block scam calls and filter out scam SMSes. Set up security features (e.g. set transaction limits for internet banking/credit and debit card transactions, enable 2FA or multifactor authentication for e-wallets, use the Money Lock feature provided by your bank to “lock up” a portion of your money so that it cannot be transferred out digitally by anyone, in particular scammers, further protecting your savings from scams).

b. CHECK – scam signs with official sources such as the ScamShield App. Call and check with the 24/7 ScamShield Helpline at 1799.

c. TELL – authorities, family, and friends if or when you encounter scams.

For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamshield.gov.sg.

Image from Singapore Police