At least 1.1 billion SDG (822 million USD) was lost to scams in 2024, with cryptocurrency-related scams accounting for nearly 25% of the total, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) reported on February 25.
E-commerce scams were the top scam type flagged by the police, followed by job scams, phishing scams, investment scams and fake friend call scams.
Cryptocurrency losses made up a larger percentage of scam losses last year, accounting for about 24.3% of total scam losses. Meanwhile, fraud through e-commerce transactions was the most common type with 11,665 cases, causing losses of 17.5 million SDG.
The total number of scam cases also increased by 10.6% to 51,501 cases in 2024, the SPF’s report said.
Statistics showed that although people aged 65 and over accounted for only 8.4% of total victims, they had the highest average loss of all age groups.
SPF noted that its Anti-Scam Command, which was set up in March 2022, managed to recover more than 182 million USD of scam losses in 2024.
To combat rising fraud, the Southeast Asian nation’s parliament passed the the Protection from Scams Act in January, which provides the police with powers to issue a restriction order to banks to restrict the banking transactions of an individual if there is reason to believe that the person is likely to make money transfers to a scammer./.
