Officers from Tanglin Police Division, Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) conducted extensive follow up investigations and tracked down a 21-year-old man, who turned out to be a victim of a China Official Impersonation Scam (COIS) within eight hours of the Police report.
On 28 January 2022, the Police received a report that a 21-year-old man had allegedly been kidnapped. Prior to the report, the family of the victim who were based in China, received videos of the victim and ransom demands from an unknown person with a Fujian accent, who was believed to be in China. Following the report, Tanglin Police Division, CID and CAD officers were activated and conducted an extensive search operation and investigations to locate the victim, who was eventually found to be safe and sound in a hotel on the same day at about 9.30am.
Preliminary investigations revealed that the 21-year-old victim had received an unsolicited call, purportedly from an officer from the Ministry of Health in Singapore some time in November 2021. The victim’s call was later redirected to other scammers who claimed to be police officers from China. The scammers had purportedly claimed that the victim was involved in money laundering offences in China and sought his cooperation to assist in their investigations. The victim and his parent later transferred more than $560,000 to the bank accounts provided by the scammer on several occasions between 22 December 2021 and 24 January 2022. The scammers had also allegedly threatened the victim. Acting on the scammer’s instructions, the victim isolated himself in a hotel room and recorded videos of himself with his hands placed behind his back in order to convince his family that he was in trouble.
The Police would like to highlight that the China Police, INTERPOL and other overseas law enforcement agencies (LEAs) have no jurisdiction to conduct operations in Singapore, arrest anyone or ask members of the public to help with any form of investigations without the approval of the Singapore Government.
The Police would also like to advise members of the public to take the following precautions when they receive unsolicited calls from unknown parties, especially those with the “+” prefix which originate overseas:
- Ignore such calls and the caller’s instructions. No government agency will instruct payment through an undocumented media like a telephone call or other social messaging platforms (WeChat or Facebook), or ask you for personal banking information such as your Internet banking passwords;
- For foreign residents receiving calls from persons claiming to be from police officers or Government Officials in your home country, please call your Embassy or High Commission to verify the claims of the caller;
- Refrain from giving out personal information and bank details, whether on the website or to callers over the phone. Personal information and bank details such as Internet bank account usernames and passwords, or one-time password (OTP) codes, are useful to criminals;
- Do not make any fund transfers if the caller is of dubious identity;
- Call a trusted friend or talk to a relative before you act. You may be overwhelmed by emotion and may err in your judgment; and
- If in doubt, always hang up the call and check with the Singapore Police Force.
If you have any information related to such crime, please call the Police Hotline at 1800-255 0000, or dial ‘999’ for urgent Police assistance.
To seek scam-related advice, members of the public may call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg. Please share this advisory with your family and friends to prevent them from being the next scam victim.
Chatlog between the scammer and victim’s family
Fake documents sent to the victim’s mobile phone
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
31 January 2022 @ 11:45 AM