62-year-old woman told to declare valuables, deliver 8.6kg of her gold to MAS Building to ‘prove innocence’
Two Malaysian men, aged 20 and 30, have been charged their suspected involvement in a government official impersonation scam.
This brings the total number of Malaysians arrested for such cases to eight.
The police said they received a report on March 20 from a 62-year-old woman, who had received calls from individuals claiming to be from M1 and the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
During the call, the victim was told she had an overdue bill of $350 that could not be deducted from her bank account.
The conversation later continued on WhatsApp, where the victim was told that an iPhone 17 Pro Max and Apple Watches had been purchased using her accounts and delivered to an address in Bukit Batok.
“When the victim stated that she was not familiar with the address and sought to cancel the transactions, she was referred to an investigation officer purportedly from MAS,” said the police in a news release on March 21.
The purported officer alleged that the victim was involved in money laundering and instructed her to declare all her valuables, which included 8.6kg of gold. She was then directed to deliver the gold to the purported officer for inspection “to prove her innocence”.
She was asked to place the gold in a bag, then head to the vicinity of MAS Building where the purported officer would verify his identity using a codeword.
When she arrived, an unknown man approached her car, uttered the codeword and took the bag before leaving.
Sensing something amiss, the victim alighted from her car and checked with a security guard at MAS building, who confirmed that the man was not affiliated with MAS.
Realising she might have been scammed, the victim called the police.
An operation was mounted to establish the identities of the unknown male and his accomplices.
The identities of two men were established: a 30-year-old Malaysian Chinese man who had collected the victim’s gold and a 20-year-old Malaysian Chinese man who had collected the gold in the vicinity of Orchard Road.
On March 21, the older man was arrested when he attempted to leave Singapore, while the younger man was nabbed in the vicinity of Woodlands through investigative probes.
Preliminary investigations revealed that both men had allegedly been tasked by unknown individuals, believed to be part of a transnational scam syndicate, to collect valuables from victims. These included cash, gold bars and jewellery, which they would hand over to other unknown persons.
Both men were charged under the Corruption, Drug Trafficking and Other Serious Crimes (Confiscation of Benefits) Act, which carries a jail term of up to 10 years and/or a fine of up to $500,000.
The police said they continue to observe an increasing trend of Malaysian nationals travelling to Singapore to assist scam syndicates in collecting cash and valuables from scam victims.
Members of the public should remember that Singapore government officials will never ask you to transfer money over the phone, request your banking login details, instruct you to install mobile apps from unofficial app stores, or ransfer your call to the police.
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