The Police would like to alert members of the public to cases of cyber extortion. Between January and May 2020, the Police have received 49 reports, with total losses amounting to at least $50,000.
Typically, in such cases, culprits would befriend victims on social media or dating-related platforms. Victims would then be invited to take part in a video chat, where they would be asked to perform compromising sexual acts. Unknown to the victims, the culprits were actually recording the session, and would then use the recordings to threaten victims into transferring money to them to prevent the videos of the victims from being released.
In some cases, the culprits have been known to threaten victims with compromising photographs that the victims have shared with them, or with doctored photographs taken from victims’ social media accounts.
Members of the public are advised to adopt the following crime prevention measures:
· Be wary of strangers who befriend you online
· Do not perform compromising sexual acts online. You do not know who is watching, and the session might be recorded.
· Never share provocative photos/videos of yourself online as they might fall into the wrong hands.
· Ignore any instruction to make payments and do not send money to anyone who attempts to extort from you
If you wish to provide any information related to such scams, please call the Police hotline at 1800-255-0000, or submit it online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness. If you require urgent Police assistance, please dial ‘999’.
To seek scam-related advice, you may call the anti-scam helpline at 1800-722-6688 or go to www.scamalert.sg. Join the ‘let’s fight scams’ campaign at www.scamalert.sg/fight by signing up as an advocate to receive up-to-date messages and share them with your family and friends. Together, we can help stop scams and prevent our loved ones from becoming the next victim of scam.
SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
22 June 2020 @ 6:05 PM