Scams and cybercrime have continued their upward trajectory in Singapore, with fraudsters choosing to reach their victims through messaging platforms and social media.
Meta’s trinity of platforms (Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp) are of particular concern, along with Telegram, the latter of which is used in 45% of scam cases, according to Latest statistics from the Singapore Police Force (FPS).
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The number of scam and cybercrime cases rose 18% to 28,751 from January to June this year, compared with 24,367 cases during the same period in 2023. Scams grew 16.3% year-on-year to account for 92.5% of total cases, with victims losing SG$385.6 million (US$294.65 million) in such cases, up 24.6% from the previous year. last year.
Overall, victims lost an average of SG$14,503 in each scam case, up 7.1% from last year.
Around 86% of the reported cases were “self-made” fund transfers, where victims were manipulated into making the transactions without the scammers gaining direct control of the users’ accounts. SPF explained that these cases were likely the result of social engineering and deception involving various scam methods.
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The law enforcement agency added that most of the scammers communicated with their victims through messaging, social media and online shopping platforms. These represented the top three modes of contact, while phone calls and other websites rounded out the top five.
In particular, messaging apps were used as a mode of contact in 8,336 scam cases, compared to 6,555 during the same period last year. WhatsApp was the most popular, accounting for 50.2% of scams, according to SPF. Telegram also stood out, recording a 137.5% increase in scam cases and accounting for 45% of messaging platforms used to contact victims.
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Social media was used in 7,737 scam cases, up from 5,937 in the first half of 2023. Facebook accounted for 64.4% of the total figure, followed by Instagram with 18.6%. Around 50.9% of people contacted via Facebook were victims of e-commerce scams.
While most scam victims were under 50, accounting for 74.2% of the total, the average amount lost per victim was highest among people aged 65 and over, according to the SPF report.
Additionally, scams involving impersonation of government officials recorded the highest average loss of SG$116,534 per case, followed by SG$40,080 per case for investment scams. SPF explained that scammers using these two methods often resorted to social engineering and fraud over time.
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At least S$13.3 million was also lost. phishing scamswhich represented 3.4% of the total losses due to fraudAnother S$67.5 million was lost to scammers impersonating government officials, or 17.5% of total losses. There were 3,447 reported phishing cases involving emails, text messages, calls and advertisements from scammers impersonating government officials, financial institutions and others. business.
Some 580 cases of government impersonation scams were reported, up 58% from last year. These cases resulted in losses totalling S$67.5 million, up 67.1% from S$40.4 million in 2023.
There were some positive results, however: malware scam cases decreased by 86.2% in the first half of 2024, compared to 687 cases during the same period last year. The total amount lost in such cases also decreased by 96.8% to S$295,000, compared to a whopping S$9.1 million the year before.