Jurong Division has launched the Anti-Scam Awareness Programme under its Community Safety and Security Programme on 6 November 2016 at West Mall Shopping Centre Pavilion. The Anti-Scam Awareness Programme serves to educate residents on the various types of scam and details how each scam tries to prey and exploit the vulnerable.
Mr Murali Pillai, Member of Parliament (MP) for Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency, was the Guest-of-Honour for the event launch.
In his opening address, Mr Murali had thanked the various stakeholders and agencies for their whole-of-government effort with the community. The Anti-Scam Awareness Programme is supported by the National Crime Prevention Council, Singapore Post (SingPost) Limited, West Mall Shopping Centre, People’s Association, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and Singapore Customs. Mr Murali also recognised the effort of staff from SingPost and POSB Bank in Bukit Batok who assisted in preventing at least 5 attempted scams in the last 6 months.
Prior to the event’s launch, Jurong Division had also reached out to different groups of the communities to be Scam Prevention Ambassadors. These ambassadors include grassroots members from various Residents’ Committees, Citizens on Patrol members, students from various secondary schools, as well as National Servicemen and trainees from the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Armed Forces and Singapore Civil Defence Force. They had attended scam awareness workshops organised by Jurong Division to identify the different types of scams and learn the associated preventive advisories. Thereafter, they assisted to spread the scam awareness messages to their families and friends, who were given a pledge card. Through these pledge cards, these members of public penned down their commitment to not be victims of scams.
In all, 1523 pledge cards were collected in a period of 3 months. The pledge cards were put together to form a wall mural, with all of the collected signatures pledging to stay on guard against scams.
With the launch of the Anti-Scam Awareness Programme”, Jurong Division hopes that the community will be more vigilant towards scams so that the opportunities for exploitation by scam syndicates would be reduced.
MP Murali Pillai delivering his speech
MP Murali Pillai and Commander of Jurong Division, Assistant Commissioner of Police (AC) Koh Wei Keong signing the pledge card
MP Murali Pillai and AC Koh Wei Keong affixing the pledge card to the wall mural
Group photo with participating partners and agencies
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
07 November 2016 @ 7:30 PM