Singapore Telecom fraud rampant China Embassy in Singapore issued a reminder.

　　In recent years, Singapore Telecom’s fraud cases have been rampant, and fraud methods and routines have emerged one after another, which is hard to prevent. Recently, dozens of China citizens have been "recruited" in Singapore in just one month. The Embassy of China in Singapore recently issued a reminder, hoping that local China citizens will be highly guarded against telecom fraud.

　　Fraud cases increased by 40%

　　According to the latest data released by the Singapore police, in the first half of 2019, 10 types of fraud cases in Singapore surged by 40% to 3591 compared with the same period of last year; The amount of fraud soared from S $59.2 million to S $83.1 million (equivalent to about RMB 430 million). Among them, e-commerce, loans, sexual services and online love fraud are the majority, accounting for 80% of the total number of 10 types of fraud cases, 58% more than the same period last year. In an online love scam, the victim lost as much as S $2.42 million (equivalent to about RMB 12.5 million).

　　According to the information released by the China Embassy in Singapore, in the past month, the Embassy has received dozens of China citizens who have been defrauded by telecommunications, and the amount of help-seekers has reached several million yuan. Most of the deceived people are international students.

　　Fraud syndicates usually operate internationally, which makes it difficult for law enforcement agencies to ban fraud syndicates. The stolen money is transferred to foreign bank accounts through local money donkeys, which makes it more difficult for law enforcement authorities to trace it. In this regard, the Singapore Commercial Affairs Bureau established a transnational commercial crime task force in October 2017 to investigate transnational fraud cases. The working group has cooperated with Malaysian and Hong Kong police to launch six joint operations against cyber loverboy. In April this year, two Nigerian loverboy operating in Malaysia were arrested and sent to Singapore.

　　Pretend to be a law enforcement officer

　　China’s Embassy in Singapore again issued a consular reminder on 17th, hoping that local China citizens would take precautions against telecom fraud.

　　The Embassy quoted the Singapore Police Force as saying that the telecom fraud cases in Singapore are on the rise. In various names, such as the staff of the Embassy of China in Singapore, the police in China or Singapore, the officials of the new Ministry of Manpower or Immigration Bureau, and the staff of DHL Express Company or local telecom company, fraudsters lied that the receiver or his relatives were suspected of committing a crime, in an attempt to trick the victim into sending money to a designated account or obtaining his online banking login information and password.

　　It is reported that the Embassy of China in Singapore recently received a request for help from a citizen in New China, claiming that he had suffered telecom fraud and suffered heavy economic losses. The suspect claimed to be a staff member of DHL Express Company, and lied that the courier sent by the victim to China contained contraband and was detained by China Customs. Subsequently, the suspect transferred the call to Beijing’s "police officer" and "prosecutor", while the "police officer" and "prosecutor" lied that the victim was suspected of an international crime case (fraud, money laundering, etc.) and produced a forged "arrest warrant", demanding the victim to provide personal account information and dynamic passwords for online banking login and transfer, and stealing huge amounts of money from the account. In the meantime, the suspect also coerced the victim to download the so-called "public security internal security monitoring software" to block the victim’s cell phone signal.

　　, so that it can not receive the short message of account change notification sent by the bank in time, and miss the best alarm opportunity. The Embassy reminded that China citizens in Singapore should stick to the "Three Musts" and "Three Don ‘ts" if they receive strange phone calls. The "Three Essentials" are to verify with the China Embassy or the Singaporean police through credible channels, to dial back according to the calling number after 5 minutes, to communicate with family and friends, and to handle it calmly; "Three Don ‘ts" means don’t trust calls from unknown sources, don’t listen to fraudsters’ requests for money transfer, don’t disclose personal identity and bank account information, and don’t give fraudsters any opportunity.

　　If you are unfortunately cheated, you should immediately report to the Singapore police, and contact the bank where I opened the account, and take measures to freeze the account, recover the cheated funds or other stop-loss measures. When necessary, I should report to the public security organ of my domestic domicile. If I can’t report the case directly, I can report it through my relatives in China.

　　Set up an anti-fraud center

　　In order to combat and prevent fraud, the Singapore police and the Commercial Affairs Bureau have set up anti-fraud centers, which will help reduce the economic losses of the deceived.

　　The anti-fraud center was established on June 18th this year. The center cooperates with banks, telecommunications companies and e-commerce platforms to quickly freeze bank accounts involved in fraud, cut off telephone lines used by fraudsters and be alert to users’ suspicious accounts on payment platforms.

　　According to local media reports, since its establishment two months ago, Singapore Anti-Fraud Center has submitted about 1,000 police reports on e-commerce fraud and loan fraud, frozen 815 fraudulent bank accounts and recovered economic losses of $850,000.

　　Before the establishment of Singapore Anti-Fraud Center, it took 14 to 60 working days for banks to freeze suspicious accounts. In addition, when investigators want to ask for information from banks, they must submit various forms. At present, the time for banks to freeze suspicious accounts has been shortened to a few days, and the police only need to apply once to obtain all relevant information, which greatly improves the efficiency of investigating fraud cases. However, this also reflects that there is still much room for improvement in anti-fraud work of banks. With the increasingly rampant fraud, banks may have to re-examine and adjust the balance between customer privacy and anti-fraud.

　　In addition, telecommunications companies and e-commerce companies are also more active in cooperating with law enforcement agencies. Telecommunications companies cut off suspicious telephone lines within the same day as the police request; The e-commerce platform actively monitors and deletes false accounts to stop the occurrence of e-commerce fraud at the source. The digital platform Carousell launched machine learning technology in March, effectively preventing the creation of 75,000 new accounts. (Li Yazhou Jun, special correspondent of Legal Daily in Singapore)