75 Individuals And 45 Organisations Presented With Community Partnership Awards For Their Vigilance In Scam Intervention

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) presented the Community Partnership Awards to 75 individuals and 45 organisations which include banks, remittance agencies and commercial and non-commercial enterprises, to recognise their commitment and contribution towards detecting and preventing scams. Please see Annex A for the list of organisations and Annex B for some of the organisations’ efforts in the fight against scams.

From 2021 to February 2022, at least 40 cases of scams were foiled through the intervention of these individuals and organisations. Most of these cases were related to common scam types such as Internet love scams, China Officials impersonation scams and lottery scams. The timely intervention by these award recipients successfully prevented the loss of at least $14 million.

The 45 organisations were commended for their swift intervention as well as their close collaboration with the Police in developing and implementing enforcement and crime prevention initiatives to combat scams. Among them, 23 were awarded the Outstanding Community Partnership Awards (Organisation) for their exceptional support in preventing scams.

Senior Assistant Commissioner of Police Tan Tin Wee, 1 Deputy Director of Operations Department and concurrent Executive Director, National Crime Prevention Council said, “As scams continue to evolve, developing strong and effective partnership with various stakeholders is critical. Even as the Singapore Police Force (SPF) continues to step up our efforts against scams, we need the assistance of everyone in the community. The Police are grateful for the strong support from the various stakeholders who have joined us in the fight against scams, and we hope to see even more from the community join us.”

New Guidelines on Online Safety

During the award ceremony event, Mr Desmond Tan, Minister of State (MOS), Ministry of Home Affairs & Ministry of Sustainability and the Environment introduced the new Guidelines on Online Safety, which was co-developed by SPF and the Asia Internet Coalition (AIC). The Guidelines on Online Safety:

Provide a broad overview on the types of crimes and online harms, ranging from scams to terrorism, which members of the public may encounter on the internet; and
Contain advisories on what internet users should look out for, as well as measures that internet users can take to protect themselves.

The Guidelines on Online Safety is available for download on the SPF and AIC websites[1].

The Police will continue to work closely with various stakeholders to prevent scams and to educate members of the public on the prevailing crime trends. Members of the public are advised to exercise vigilance, especially when communicating with strangers through phone, or platforms such as the social networking sites and online dating platforms.

For more information on scams, please visit www.scamalert.sg or call the Anti-Scam Hotline at 1800-722-6688. Anyone with information on scams may call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness.

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MOS Tan giving a speech

[1]SPF: https://www.police.gov.sg/Community/Community-Programmes/Industry-Safety-and-Security-Watch-Group, AIC: https://aicasia.org

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Mr Au Him Leong from Card Security Group Singapore being awarded the Outstanding Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

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Mr Elvin Lim from DBS Bank being awarded the Outstanding Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

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Mr Christopher Ong from DHL Express (Singapore) Pte Ltd being awarded the Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

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Mr Leong Wen Xian from Oversea-Chinese Bank of Singapore (OCBC) (Jurong Point Branch) being awarded the Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

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Ms Lee Xuan Ying, Sara from OCBC (Jurong Point Branch) being awarded the Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

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Mr Wee Kai Lim, Joshua from United Overseas Bank (UOB) (Hougang MRT Branch) being awarded the Community Partnership Award by MOS Tan

Annex A

List of 45 Organisations Presented with the Outstanding Community Partnership Award (Organisation) and Community Partnership Award (Organisation)*

• All Best Enterprise Pte Ltd
• Ang Mo Kio Market Committee
• Arnold’s Fried Chicken (Main, Tampines and Bedok outlets)
• Bank of China
• Banking Computer Services
• Card Security Group Singapore
• Carousell Pte Ltd
• CIMB Bank Singapore
• Citibank Singapore Limited
• Copthorne King's Hotel
• DBS
• DHL Express (Singapore) Pte Ltd
• Dian Xiao Er
• Hako Technology Pte Ltd
• Hougang Mall
• HomeTeamNS (Tampines)
• HSBC
• ICBC Singapore Limited
• IJOOZ AI Pte Ltd
• KampungBishan
• La Salle College of the Arts
• Lazada Singapore
• Maybank Singapore Limited
• Meta
• Myvillage
• OurCakerySG
• OCBC
• OCBC (White Sands Branch)
• POSB (White Sands)
• Punggol Plaza
• QCP Capital Pte Ltd
• Qoo10 Pte Ltd
• Razer Online Pte Ltd (Razer SEA HQ)
• RHB Bank Berhad Singapore
• Rivervale Plaza
• Shopee Singapore Pte Ltd
• Singapore Management University
• Standard Chartered Bank (Singapore) Limited
• Temasek Foundation
• UOB
• UOB (Bukit Batok Branch)
• UOB (White Sands Branch)
• VYBE’S Hairdressing
• Wise Singapore Pte Ltd
• Xfers Pte Ltd

* In alphabetical order

Annex B

Write-ups of some of the organisations’ efforts in the fight against scams

IJOOZ AI PTE LTD

Since October 2021, Serangoon NPC has collaborated with IJOOZ AI PTE LTD to display anti-scam advisories on their 516 vending machines island-wide. In the upcoming months, IJOOZ AI Pte Ltd will continue to work with SPF and utilise its company’s latest 10,000 digital kiosks to display the next wave of anti-scam advisories.

Dian Xiao Er

Dian Xiao Er is a Chinese restaurant with 14 outlets in Singapore, with a customer base of about 105,000. Bukit Panjang NPC had worked with Dian Xiao Er and sought the support from the Founder and the Managing Director to disseminate anti-scam leaflets at all of their outlets. This initiative has been implemented for all the Dian Xiao Er outlets and home-based bakery orders island-wide since 26 January 2022.

Singapore Management University

Singapore Management University (SMU) has been an active and supportive member of Safety and Security Watch Group since 2021. They have worked with SPF to plan and execute Exercise Heartbeat 2022 despite the challenging COVID-19 backdrop. Through the exercise, SMU has the opportunity to validate its contingency plans and enhance its response plans to better deter, detect and deal with a major incident.

In addition, the school has also supported SPF’s initiative to display a digital game kiosk within its premises as part of SPF’s crime prevention efforts against scams. SMU has also invited officers from the SPF as guest speaker to share with the student audience on scams.

Arnold’s Fried Chicken

Arnold’s Fried Chicken had displayed strong support towards SPF’s anti-scam efforts by educating their customers on scams through campaigns organised jointly with Bedok Police Division at their outlets.

As part of the two-phase campaigns, the company had actively posted anti-scam advisories on their social media pages, distributed educational anti-scam game sets to its customers as well as guided their customers on the campaign redemption criteria which included sign-ups, attempting anti-scam quiz questions and posting scam prevention tips on their own Facebook. Under Phase 1 from 1 to 31 December 2021, a total of 700 game sets were distributed and a total of 124 goodie bags were redeemed. Under Phase 2 from 17 January to 6 February 2022, a total of 1,103 sign-ups were received and a total of 1,054 goodie bags were redeemed at the outlets.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
07 April 2022 @ 2:20 PM