WHAT IS BEING DONE TO HELP MAIDS?
Given the severity of such illegal activities, some employment agencies are taking extra precautions to educate maids. We Are Caring, for instance, screens all helpers when they are deployed to Singapore, and holds weekly workshops to train them in detecting criminal activity.
The staff also assist them in setting up ScamShield, and facial recognition for their SingPass accounts to prevent misuse by third parties.
“Their level of digital literacy is sometimes not very high, and they are shy to ask. So they are very happy to have an open conversation and also to do this together with other helpers,” said the agency’s managing director David Bensadon.
“And because we tell them how to prevent scams, they feel stronger. And this is the end point – we want them to be able to identify early any risks of scam and to have the right behaviour.”
There are also other avenues of support for domestic helpers. Non-governmental organisation Aidha for example, runs free courses on financial literacy.
Banks also said they are doing their part.
DBS said that while anyone might become a money mule, certain groups, such as students, younger individuals, and migrant domestic workers, may be more vulnerable due to various factors, such as searching for quick financial gains or seemingly lucrative employment opportunities.
The bank said it proactively combats money mule activity through a dedicated “anti-mule team” set up in September last year that works closely with the police.
The team has conducted joint operations with the police, which resulted in the seizure of over S$8.5 million in illicit funds from mule accounts, a spokesperson said.
The bank added that since 2016, it has conducted digital and financial literacy workshops for over 300,000 migrant workers.
OCBC’s head of anti-fraud under the group financial crime compliance Beaver Chua said that scams are becoming more sophisticated and hard to detect.
He added that the bank has a close working relationship with the police and a team stationed onsite at the Police Anti-Scam Centre, which allows it to identify and freeze or block fraudulent transactions and compromised accounts more quickly.
“When a scam is detected or reported, time is of the essence to stop fraudulent funds flows and trace them to afford a higher chance of recovering the scammed funds,” he said.
