Government officials impersonation scams caused the highest losses on average, with victims losing about S$116,534 in each case.
A total of 580 such cases were reported in the first half of 2024, with losses of at least S$67.5 million.
This was a 58 per cent increase from the 367 cases in the same period last year, with the total amount lost rising even more – by 67.1 per cent.
Government officials impersonation scams typically involve criminals posing as local government officers, such as those from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), representatives of Chinese authorities or bank employees.
Meanwhile, fake friend call scam cases fell 38.2 per cent to 2,368 in the first half of 2024. The amount lost also dropped by 37.2 per cent to about S$8.1 million.
The police said 86 per cent of all the reported scams mostly involved “self-effected transfers which may be a result of deception and social engineering involving an array of complex scam methods”.
This meant that the scammers did not gain direct control of victims’ accounts, but manipulated them into directly performing the monetary transactions, it explained.
Minister of State for Home Affairs and for Social and Family Development Sun Xueling said: “This goes to show that social engineering is a very important part of the scams’ modus operandi, and we need to increase our education efforts to inform our members of the public so that they are not manipulated into transferring their monies to scam accounts.”
