Yesterday The State Times carried an article about a woman who had fallen victim to scammers pretending to be officers from the police’s Anti Scam Centre (ASC). She lost a total of $1.2 million over the course of two months.

I was struck by how easily she was taken in particularly as the report said she worked in finance and was obviously fairly well off and presumably relatively well educated.

The fake police officers, whom she says she initially questioned but backed down when they got angry and told her she was suspected of lending her bank account to facilitate money laundering. She seems to have obeyed without question orders to send her bank statements to the scammers and to update them on her whereabouts four times a day by WhatsApp.

The report says she wanted to show she was cooperative and complied with everything the scammers demanded including keeping the “investigation” confidential. She received a fake letter saying she would be charged with money laundering and detained for 60 days. She was made to open a bank account with a Chinese bank with $500,000 of her own money and then make payments to various payees of $180,000. She was contacted by the real ASC over the transfers and was told by the scammers to tell ASC that she knew what she was doing and that she was helping the police (Why didn’t the real ASC ask her for the name of the police officer? Surely they could have told her then that no such person existed).

Finally she was told to withdraw the remaining $320,000 in cash and hand it over to someone who she met at a public space. Subsequently she met the man three more times and handed over her entire life savings of $1.2 million (including the $180,000 she had paid over earlier).

After she asked for her money back several times she was told her case was pending before the High Court and she had to wait. Eventually the scammers stopped contacting her on February 6 2025 but she took another two weeks to make a police report. In all they succeeded iin keeping her hooked for at least two months believing their lies.

While such scams are not unknown in other countries I am sure Singaporeans, and citizens of other authoritarian states like China, are particularly susceptible because the police have such sweeping powers to detain and question individuals with few if any of the safeguards and checks and balances that apply in countries with a greater respect for individual rights. I assume that the woman in question was Singaporean and not PRC because the report says she believed the fake police officer because he had a local accent.

The Singapore police do have very wide powers to detain you almost indefinitely for questioning and you have no right to access to a lawyer until the police have finished questioning you. Interviews are now video recorded but only for a limited range of mostly sexual offences. The PAP has also sought to instill in Singaporeans a fear that anything less than unquestioning obedience to authority will result in severe consequences, not only immediately but throughout their lives. Indeed that is undoubtedly one of the unspoken reasons for retaining NS for such a lengthy period despite there being no real need for it to be so long. The PAP even said publicly that your rank and army record (of obedience) would determine your position in civilian life. Singaporeans may be told incessantly how proud they should feel that they have surrendered their rights in return for (fake) higher growth and living standards but one of the unintended consequences is that the population is more gullible and easier to take advantage of by anyone pretending to have a position of authority.

The case here is merely one of many. The report says that in 2024 alone there were 1,504 cases of government official impersonation scams involving over a $150 million. When you create a nation of sheep don’t expect it to be immune from being preyed on by wolves (and that’s just their leaders!). To prevent such scams in future Singaporeans should be taught to be less accepting of authority and more aware of their rights. It’s a pity that once surendered they’re very difficult to get back.

Published by kjeyaretnam

I'm a Singaporean economist who became an opposition activist. I blog to provide an alternative to the porkies that the Pinkies tell. It just so happens that my alternative is the truth. That's why I've never been sued in any civil or criminal court no matter how hard hitting my criticism. I'm quoted and interviewed and asked to speak across the world but largely censored in Singapore in an effort to silence my political opinions. The left hate me because they think I split their vote and because I eschew their outmoded economic models. Models that don't work. The Right and the Conservatives hate me because I'm a liberal. I'm not sure what the middle think of me. I don't think there are more than a handful of people in the middle, here in Singapore. I'm a Singaporean born and bred, dual heritage, my parents Singaporean established here before the State of Singapore was created. I'm not Eurasian. I read economics at Cambridge and could be broadly described as from the Keynesian school but I believe in interventions. I was formerly a successful hedge fund manager. After economics and politics my greatest interests are history, film and Makan. I run but I run so I can eat like a Singaporean. View all posts by kjeyaretnam