Scams and cybercrimes have continued their upward trajectory in Singapore, with scammers opting to reach their victims through messaging and social media platforms.
Meta’s trinity of platforms — Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — are of particular concern, alongside Telegram, the latter of which is used in 45% of scam cases, according to the latest stats from Singapore Police Force (SPF).
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The number of scam and cybercrime cases climbed from 18% to 28,751 from January to June this year, up from 24,367 cases during the same period in 2023. Scams grew 16.3% year-on-year to account for 92.5% of total cases, with victims losing SG$385.6 million ($294.65 million) in such cases, up 24.6% from last year.
Across the board, victims lost an average of SG$14,503 in each instance of scam, up 7.1% from last year.
Some 86% of reported cases were “self-effected” fund transfers, in which victims were manipulated into performing the transactions without scammers gaining direct control of user accounts. SPF explained that these were likely the result of social engineering and deception involving various scam methods.
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The law enforcement agency added that most scammers contacted their victims through messaging, social media, and online shopping platforms. These accounted for the top three modes of contact, with phone calls and other websites rounding up the top five list.
In particular, messaging apps were used as a mode of contact in 8,336 scam cases, compared to 6,555 during the same period last year. WhatsApp was the most popular, accounting for 50.2% of scams, SPF said. It also pointed to Telegram, which saw a 137.5%…
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