S$1.1 Billion Lost To Scams In Singapore In 2024

By Nur Ashikin Abdul Aziz

SINGAPORE, Feb 25 (Bernama) -- At least S$1.1 billion (S$1=RM3.30) was lost to scams in Singapore in 2024 – an increase of 70.6 per cent compared to the previous year, according to police statistics released on Tuesday.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said the total number of scam cases also increased by 10.6 per cent to 51,501 cases in 2024, which accounted for 92.3 per cent of cybercrimes reported last year.

The amount lost to scams and the number of cases is the highest for Singapore in a single year, at least since 2020.

The majority of the scam cases saw losses of less than S$5,000 while the median loss per case  was S$1,389.

“In 2024, the Anti-Scam Command (ASCom) successfully recovered more than S$182 million of scam losses, and the net scam losses were about S$930 million.

“In addition, through proactive interventions with victims at various stages of being scammed, ASCom and its partners had averted at least S$483 million in potential losses,” SPF said in a statement.

Cryptocurrency losses formed a larger percentage of scam losses, accounting for about 24.3 per cent of total scam losses in 2024, compared to about 6.8 per cent in 2023.

Meanwhile, e-commerce, job, phishing, investment, and fake friend call scams were the top five scam types in 2024 in terms of case numbers.

In terms of the total amount lost, investment, job, government officials impersonation, malware-enabled scams, and business email compromise scams were the top five scam types in 2024.

Self-effected transfers accounted for 82.4 per cent of total reported scam cases last year.

SPF said in most of these cases, the scammers did not gain direct control of the victims’ accounts but manipulated victims into performing the monetary transactions by means of deception and social engineering.

Scammers commonly reach out to victims through messaging platforms, social media, phone calls, and online shopping platforms.

“Three products from Meta (Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram) and Telegram remain particularly concerning, consistently being over-represented among the platforms exploited by scammers to contact potential victims and conduct their scams,” the police said.

In 2024, 70.9 per cent of scam victims were youths, young adults, and adults aged below 50.

Police said although the elderly made up only a small proportion of the scam victims, the average amount they lost per victim was the highest among the various age groups.

-- BERNAMA