At least $408k lost to 'financial intelligence unit' scammers since Apr

At least $408,000 has been lost to scams involving the impersonation of government officials from a unit under the Commercial Affairs Department since April 2025.

The police said on Aug 28 that there have been at least 20 such cases, where scammers pretend to be officers from the Suspicious Transaction Reporting Office (STRO), which is Singapore's financial intelligence unit.

The ruse may start with scammers making video calls to their victims. To appear legitimate in their impersonations, the scammers may show identification documents such as warrant cards, wear "police uniforms", or display the police crest in the background.

Scammers may even introduce themselves using the names of actual police officers, which is publicly available information.

The scammers would claim that victims had to be investigated for involvement in criminal activities such as money laundering.

For victims who have been scammed before, the impersonators may refer to those previous transactions and claim that they oversaw the investigation.

In some cases, the scammers would pretend to be bank employees and claim that the victims had conducted suspicious financial transactions. They would then transfer them to STRO impersonators for "investigation".

The STRO receives reports of suspicious transactions, cash movements and cash transactions. It analyses them to detect money laundering, terrorism financing and other crimes.

To appear more credible, scammers may provide fake "official" documents such as "STRO report" and "Anti-Money Laundering warrant" on WhatsApp.

Under the guise of investigating, the scammers would instruct victims to transfer money to bank accounts supposedly owned by the Government, hand over cash to the scammers, or perform cryptocurrency transfers.

Victims would realise they had been scammed only when the scammers asked for more money to be deposited or when they sought verification with the Singapore Police Force.

Overall, victims in Singapore have lost more than $3.4 billion to scams since 2019.

The most common ruse in 2024 was e-commerce scams, with 11,665 reported cases.

The police advise the public to never transfer monies or other valuables to any unknown person. Members of the public should also not place monies or valuables at a physical location for collection.

The STRO will never ask members of the public to transfer money, disclose banking log-in details, install mobile applications from unofficial app stores, or transfer calls to the police.

For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamshield.gov.sg