SINGAPORE – Scam victims in Singapore lost $1.1 billion in 2024, marking a record high amount of losses suffered in a single year.

Almost 25 per cent of this involved cryptocurrency, a surge from 6.8 per cent of total losses in 2023.

Overall, the amount lost to scams in 2024 is around 70 per cent higher than the $651.8 million that scammers took in 2023, said police in releasing the annual scam figures on Feb 25.

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

Police saw the highest number of scam reports ever in 2024, with 51,501 cases recorded compared with 46,563 cases the previous year.

Over 70 per cent of these cases involved less than $5,000 in losses each. Police said the median loss per case is around $1,300.

The most common ruse in 2024 was e-commerce scams, with 11,665 reported cases and victims losing at least $17.5 million in total.

Around one in two of these victims was aged between 30 and 49.

Police said the concert ticket ruse contributed to the majority of e-commerce cases.

In such a ruse, victims are fooled into believing that they have paid for tickets, which are then not delivered or discovered to be fake.

In March 2024, The Straits Times reported that at least 960 victims lost over $538,000 in just 10 weeks to Taylor Swift concert ticket scams.

Job scams continued to be among the top scams of concern in 2024, although there was a dip in the number of cases reported. In total, victims reported more than 9,000 cases and lost $156.2 million.

Phishing scams rounded off the top three scams of concern in 2024 with $59.4 million lost, more than four times the amount lost the year before.

Police figures showed that over 70 per cent of scam victims were below 50 years old.

Young adults and those aged below 50 most commonly fell for e-commerce scams, while those aged 50 to 64 and the elderly mostly lost money in phishing scams.

On cryptocurrency losses, Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) director David Chew described the pivot to crypto as disturbing.

“Scammers know that we are tightening bank controls and charging money mules who sell their bank accounts and that, sooner or later, bank accounts will dry up.

“Hence, they are pivoting with speed.”

He said scammers are taking advantage of the fact that cryptocurrency can be moved quickly.

The authorities are also finding it harder to stop scammers from making transfers to their wallets.

“While you know the wallet number, you may not know who is behind it or where it is, and we may not be able to freeze the money if the wallet is in a cryptocurrency exchange based overseas,” said Mr Chew.

He added that scammers can employ cryptocurrency tumblers or mixers, which can hide the origins of transactions and make them difficult to trace.

“It is very easy for cryptocurrency to go into a mixer, and once you mix it, victims will never have their line of sight back to their accounts,” Mr Chew said.

Police said the increase in the overall amount lost to scams in 2024 was driven by a “small number of cases with very high losses”, with four cases alone accounting for $237.9 million in losses.

One of these cases involved a business e-mail compromise ruse, with a commodities company in Singapore losing $57.2 million to scammers in July 2024.

Police said the firm had responded to an e-mail which it thought was from a vendor informing it of a change in bank account details for payment.

The firm made payment to the “updated” bank account, only to learn that it was a scam when it received a late payment notice from the actual vendor.

The fake bank account was traced to Timor-Leste. Around US$42 million (S$56 million) was recovered after the Anti-Scam Command, Interpol and the Timor-Leste authorities intervened, and nine arrests were made.

Police said that in more than three in four cases, victims had transferred sums of monies without scammers gaining direct control of their accounts.

They added that the victims were manipulated into performing the monetary transactions through deception and social engineering.

CAD’s Mr Chew said that in such cases, scammers target and “groom” people with assets.

“By the time victims realise that it is a scam, it is too late and the money is long gone. The danger of self-effected transfers lies in the delayed response and self-denial,” he added.

Police said that some individuals were so taken in by the scammers’ deceit that they refused to believe that they were being scammed despite repeated advice from loved ones and the authorities.

The surge in reports of victims voluntarily handing their money to scammers prompted the Protection from Scams Bill, which was passed in Parliament in January 2025.

The law gives the police powers to restrict individuals from transferring money out of their bank accounts, if there is reason to believe that they are likely to make transfers to scammers.

By imposing the restriction, the authorities have more time to convince would-be victims that they are being scammed.

Police said their Anti-Scam Command, which was operationalised in 2022 to combat scams, recovered over $182 million in scam losses and averted at least $483 million in potential losses in 2024.

Following numerous islandwide enforcement operations the same year, the police also charged more than 660 scammers and money mules in court.

Mr Jeffrey Chin, deputy director of the Scam Public Education Office, said scammers will constantly find ways to push victims into making fast decisions.

Instead of rushing, people should stop, think and then act.

“We urge you to slow down, take a moment to check if you are unsure if something is a scam,” he added.

• Nadine Chua is a crime and court journalist at The Straits Times.

Asia News Network/The Straits Times