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SINGAPORE – The Singapore Police Anti-Scam Center (ASC) has recovered more than $ 4.91 million ($ 6.69 million) in an alleged commercial email scam.
It is the largest individual sum that the center has recovered since its creation in June of last year.
In a statement on Thursday (October 8), police said they launched an investigation after receiving alerts on October 3 from the United Overseas Bank (UOB) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.
A foreign bank, which the police declined to identify, had contacted UOB to urgently withdraw US $ 5 million that was illegally transferred to a Singapore-based UOB account belonging to a local company.
UOB told reporters it froze Singapore’s bank account minutes after the alert. Preliminary police investigations showed that the money was moved following an alleged commercial email scam.
Working with UOB, ASC was able to recover more than US $ 4.91 million. Police said they are tracking the remaining sum.
The bank said it is the largest sum that the bank’s branches here have recovered from a scam.
Police praised the local bank for “its invaluable help in recovering the money,” adding that the public should be vigilant about these types of scams involving composite email addresses.
“Such scams involve misleading companies by spoofing company or customer email addresses and causing them to transfer large amounts of money to the wrong hands,” police added.
At least 209 reports of business email engagement scams were received here in the first six months of the year, up from 164 cases in the same period last year.
However, police said the total amount scammed has decreased. Victims were cheated out of at least $ 15.9 million between January and June this year, down from $ 22.3 million in the same period last year.
The largest sum previously recovered was $ 6.4 million.
It was part of the 6.64 million euros ($ 10.7 million) that tricked a French pharmaceutical company into transferring it to a Singapore bank account to pay for a large shipment of surgical masks and hand sanitizers.
The UOB recovered about $ 5.3 million of the sum of S $ 6.4 million, after being alerted about the transaction on March 14.
On Thursday, police reminded companies to take crime prevention measures, such as educating staff to be on the lookout for any new or sudden changes in payment instructions and bank accounts.
They said that companies should also verify payment instructions by calling the sender of the email through phone numbers on their record instead of unknown numbers provided in the scam email.
To prevent your company’s email account from being hacked, the police advise companies to use strong passwords and change them periodically. Two-factor authentication should also be used whenever possible.
For advice on scams, the public can call the Scam Helpline at 1 800-722-6688 or visit this website.
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