The Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) of the Singapore Police Force and the Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) of the Royal Malaysia Police have jointly crippled a transnational fraud syndicate based in Kuala Lumpur. The syndicate perpetrated both impersonation phone scams targeting banks and Internet love scams across various jurisdictions.
On 26 December 2019, a complainant lodged a report in Singapore stating that S$50,000 was transferred out of his bank account without his authorisation. Investigations revealed that a man impersonating the complainant had called the bank’s contact centre to request for a change of his phone number and mailing address. He was able to provide the complainant’s personal and banking information which was illicitly procured from other criminals, to the call centre operator to effect the change of contact information.
The syndicate members then gained unauthorised access to the complainant’s Internet banking account and performed fraudulent transactions using the SMS one-time-passwords received on the updated phone number. Further investigations by CAD revealed that the stolen funds were withdrawn in Malaysia via a bank account to which several victims of Internet love scams in Singapore transferred money. As the complainant in this case is not a victim of an Iinternet love scam, investigators believed that the syndicate could be responsible for committing different types of transnational fraud and scams.
On 13 February 2020, acting on information provided by CAD, CCID officers raided an apartment in Kuala Lumpur and arrested two Nigerian men, aged 23 and 27, and a 21-year-old Zambian woman for their involvement in phone scams targeting banks worldwide. They were also believed to be part of a syndicate responsible for at least 12 cases of Internet love scams reported in Singapore involving losses of at least S$700,000. Several telecommunication devices, laptops and ATM cards were seized during the operation. In Singapore, CAD officers concurrently arrested a 41-year-old Malaysian man for allegedly facilitating the transfer of criminal proceeds to the syndicate.
Director CAD, Mr David Chew said, “This case shows that syndicates are motivated to commit different types of lucrative cross-border scams at the same time, in a world that is well-connected by the Internet and modern telecommunications infrastructure. In an age where phone and Internet banking are used increasingly, we want to advise financial institutions to be wary of fraudsters who have illicitly obtained their customers information and impersonate their customers to make fraudulent phone or online transactions. Financial institutions should consider the risks, and adopt additional measures, as necessary, to verify their identities. On their part, members of the public must be careful not to divulge their personal and banking information to third parties. I would like to thank Director CCID, Commissioner Dato’ Sri Mohd Zakaria Ahmad and his officers from the Intelligence and Operations Division of CCID for their strong support and exemplary efforts in this joint operation.”
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
18 February 2020 @ 7:45 PM