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Singapore to cane scammers as billions lost in financial crimes

2025-11-0420:0278101www.freemalaysiatoday.com

Scam victims in Singapore have lost around US$2.9 billion since 2020, according to data from the local police.

Singapore’s police and central bank have worked with major retail banks since 2022 to distinguish scams from legitimate transactions. (AFP pic)
SINGAPORE:
Singapore will cane scammers under a new law as the city-state grapples with crimes affecting thousands of people.

The measure, passed in a parliamentary session today, comes as financial frauds are exploding in the Southeast Asian country and globally.

Scam victims in Singapore have lost around S$3.8 billion (US$2.9 billion) since 2020, with a record S$1.1 billion in losses last year, according to data from the local police.

The pervasiveness of the problem alarmed authorities, with the number of cases reaching nearly 20,000 in the first half of this year, with S$456.4 million in losses.

“Scams are by far the most prevalent crime type in Singapore today,” Sim Ann, senior minister of state for home affairs, said during the session.

“They make up 60% of all reported crimes,” she said.

Singapore already uses caning for several crimes, such as vandalism, serious sexual offenses and robbery.

The Southeast Asian financial hub has implemented a series of measures to combat the surge in scams, including by restricting access to key banking and telecoms services for individuals who are linked to scam activities.

The country also passed a new law earlier this year that would allow the police to control the bank accounts of individuals who they suspect to be scam targets and limit what transactions they can do.

Singapore’s police and the central bank have also worked with major retail banks since 2022 to distinguish scams from legitimate transactions, trace fund flows and freeze accounts suspected to be linked to criminal operations.


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Comments

  • By JSR_FDED 2025-11-051:382 reply

    The damage done by scammers is enormous. Families losing their life’s savings. Quite often these scams are perpetrated on less sophisticated people so the economic damage to them is even more devastating.

    It’s not like the government woke up one day and started to cane scammers. There have been years of educational programs in different languages. A campaign with special focus on protecting the elderly. Every time you transfer money with your online banking app you get a warning about scammers. They instituted an SMS registry that results in unknown numbers (for instance pretending to be your bank) showing up as “LIKELY SCAM” on your phone. That hasn’t eradicated the problem, so now the punishment goes up.

    Imagine a government that actually protects its citizens…

    • By shoobiedoo 2025-11-051:522 reply

      My mom just lost about fifteen thousand dollars. The sad part is, she knew full well, for years now, if you hear a certain accent from a cold call, just hang up the phone. She received calls almost every day since she still needs a landline to talk to family, so she is very well versed in avoiding them.

      So for her to fall for a scam has us worried, it might be a sign of neurodegenerative disease. She went from sharp as a tack when it came to ignoring scammers, to falling into it. I'm sure this is a very common theme. These parasites prey on the elderly losing their mental acuity

    • By nine_k 2025-11-052:051 reply

      What would actually help the scammed families would be getting the lost resources back, at least partially. I realize that it may be hard, for the resources may have been squandered.

      Scamming would be much less prevalent if money were trackable, scam transactions would be possible to roll back, yes, transitively, from all the downstream users. The downstream users would then be keenly interested in the provenance of the money they're being paid. Ironically, blockchain-based currencies are perfectly trackable (at least in theory; mixers make it harder). Sadly, this has a ton of obvious privacy implications.

      • By aitchnyu 2025-11-054:45

        In India, people who are n transfers away from a fraudsters account had entire accounts frozen. Also heard of officials holding the same power over strangers bank accounts. Now banks are able to lein only the affected amount from recipient.

  • By colonial 2025-11-056:332 reply

    After spending a summer working in Singapore, I fully support introducing corporal punishment to America (and accelerated capital punishment for drug trafficking offenses.) It turns out that - surprise! - actually punishing criminals where it hurts, even for "petty" offenses, works wonders for making your country a nice place to live.

    Now, obviously, Singapore's methods aren't perfect - a common complaint I heard was that money can buy you kid gloves - and I imagine the Supreme Court smackdown over caning versus the 8th Amendment would be biblical. But any return to broken windows governance would be much appreciated.

    • By Gud 2025-11-0513:111 reply

      A few months is not enough to get a good understanding of the local culture.

      I have lived in a lot of places.

      • By colonial 2025-11-0514:411 reply

        You don't need years to look around and see that (unlike much of the US) there are no homeless addicts, fare evaders, or vandals on the transit in Singapore. (Or, for that matter, murderous psychos with dozens of prior arrests.)

        Logically, therefore, they have superior crime policy we should learn from - nothing to do with culture.

        • By Gud 2025-11-0515:011 reply

          But you are wrong. It is entirely possible that the population of Singapore would act exactly the same with a lax policy.

          I live in Switzerland. There is no public caning for chewing bubble gum here.

          Yet it is an extremely nice place to live in.

          I have also lived in Dubai where there is sharia law. Also a nice place for most people

          • By Viliam1234 2025-11-0522:46

            The more good solutions there are, the more shameful it is if we cannot adopt any of them.

    • By cedws 2025-11-058:00

      The way I think of is is that crime is like a market. When the consequences are low, crime will rise. If you introduce such severe consequences for crimes that criminals never dare do it again, crime will inevitably fall. Singapore seems to get this but none of the rest of us do.

  • By ETH_start 2025-11-057:171 reply

    One thing I noticed when I was traveling in Singapore is that the businesses don't put their patio chairs away at night because unlike where I'm originally from on the West Coast, they won't get stolen if left out. I think there's thousands of these small benefits that come with a low crime society that are hard to quantify but cumulatively add up.

    • By esperent 2025-11-0510:513 reply

      Does the low crime come from the strict laws, or from being tiny? My money is that most of it is the latter.

      Also, I'd say that it's only low crime when it comes to small crimes. If you include financial crime then it's probably the opposite.

      • By ETH_start 2025-11-0519:34

        The population of Singapore is quite large

      • By naveen99 2025-11-0511:58

        Probably ppp gdp per Capita of $155k.

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