The Police have arrested two women, aged 19 and 30, for their suspected involvement in a China Officials Impersonation scam.
In July 2020, the Police received a report where a female victim had purportedly received unsolicited phone calls from unknown persons claiming to be Chinese authorities. She was purportedly deceived into thinking that she was being investigated for a serious crime and was then instructed by the scammers to hand over $1 million in cash over a period of five days to a woman.
Through investigations, officers from the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) established the identity of the 19-year-old woman and arrested her on the same day of the report. Preliminary investigations revealed that the 19-year-old is believed to have acted on the instruction of the scammers to collect the cash from the victim. The cash was allegedly handed over to another woman, aged 30, who was also arrested on the same day.
Investigations against the 19-year-old woman are ongoing.
The 30-year-old woman will be charged in court on 30 October 2020 with assisting another person to retain benefits from criminal conduct. The offence of being concerned in an arrangement to facilitate the retention of others’ criminal benefits under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Offences (Confiscation of Benefits) Act carries an imprisonment term of up to 10 years, or a fine of up to S$500,000, or both.
The Police would like to warn members of the public not to collect money from other individuals on the behalf of unknown persons, especially those claiming to be officers from law enforcement agencies. Such callers are most likely scammers, and members of the public who act on their instructions may unwittingly have committed a crime by assisting to launder money from criminal activities.
To seek scam-related advice, members of the public may call the National Crime Prevention Council’s anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or visit www.scamalert.sg. Join the ‘Let’s fight scams’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next scam victim.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
29 October 2020 @ 10:50 PM