Victims lose $1.7m after being lured by 'grandiose' WhatsApp groups, fake investors and non-existent profits
The police are alerting members of the public to the abuse of shell investment applications used to peddle fraudulent investment products.
Since October, there have been at least 20 reported cases of investment scams involving shell investment applications, with total losses amounting to at least $1.7 million.
In this scam variant, the victims would chance upon social media advertisements for 'investment products' that promised lucrative returns.
Upon clicking on these advertisements, the scammers would contact victims via WhatsApp and invite them into group chats that bore grandiose names like 'Interactive Elite Knowledge Academy' and '168 Wealth Pursuit'.
Within these chat groups, victims would meet other members who claimed to be successful investors.
These members were allegedly scammers who vouched for the authenticity of the 'investments' and 'returns'.
The scammers would continue to build rapport with the victims to convince them to invest in the 'investment products'.
Victims would then be invited to create a trading account by downloading applications (e.g. FPTUP, FPTEX, NOVIQ, FPCAP, SDXA, SJ NEXUS, WHG ROUP, GINKO PLUS) from Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
These were shell investment applications that promoted fraudulent investment products such as fake cryptocurrency, forex and stock-trading products.
The victims' purported trades shown in these applications were fake and the 'profits' did not exist.
The victims would be asked to transfer money to specified bank accounts or via a QR code to YouTrip to start the 'investment'.
In some cases, the victims were asked to physically meet up with unknown persons to hand over cash or gold to 'invest' in the fraudulent investment products.
The scammers would provide a document as proof of the investment deposit. The document would claim to be associated with an investment entity that was not in fact licensed by the Monetary Authority of Singapore to carry out financial services in Singapore.
The victims would only realise that they had been scammed when they could not withdraw their money.
Members of the public are encouraged to adopt the following precautionary measures when faced with a scam:
ADD - set security features (e.g. activate the privacy function on your device which disallows unknown users from adding you into group chats).
CHECK - check for scam signs with official sources or websites. You can check the legitimacy of suspicious messages, phone numbers and website links via the ScamShield app or visit the ScamShield website at www.scamshield.gov.sg.
TELL - authorities, family, and friends about scams. Report any fraudulent transactions to your bank immediately.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamshield.gov.sg.
