Home Team Science and Technology Agency and Anti-Scam Centre's Success in Deterring Scammers and Recovering of Monies

16 Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Minister for Home Affairs how have the Home Team Science and Technology Agency and the Anti-Scam Centre (i) targeted and deterred scammers and (ii) further plans to help victims of such scams to recover monies.

Mr K Shanmugam: The vast majority of scams are perpetrated by scammers based outside Singapore. These scammers are typically part of organised criminal groups and run sophisticated transnational operations which are not easy to detect or dismantle. These scammers are also well-resourced and adept at using technology to cover their tracks. The number of scammers is also potentially limitless and the authorities will not be able to detect and stop every scam attempt, no matter how much resources we pour in.

Such cases are difficult to investigate and prosecute. Much of our efforts to solve these cases will depend on the level of cooperation of overseas law enforcement agencies, as well as their ability to track down these scammers based in their jurisdictions – this varies across countries.

Given the investigative challenges associated with transnational scammers, enforcement alone will never be sufficient. The first line of defence must be an aware, watchful and discerning public, who will be sceptical and check first with authoritative sources before responding, when approached with suspicious stories. This is because once monies have been transferred out of Singapore, recovery is extremely difficult.

While these challenges are substantive, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has taken steps to try and deal with the issues that can be dealt with, and enhanced our ability to deal with scams.

The Home Team Science and Technology Agency (HTX) has developed and deployed an Online Cybersquat Hunter (OCH) that uses artificial intelligence to trawl the Internet daily, to detect potential scam and phishing sites. The OCH currently targets sites spoofing MHA's public websites, such as those under the Singapore Police Force, Singapore Civil Defence Force, and Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. HTX is collaborating with GovTech to adapt OCH to also detect sites which spoof other Government sites.

Through the Inter-Ministry Committee on Scams, the Police coordinate efforts with other public agencies and private stakeholders to combat scams. For example, the Police have worked with the telecommunication operators through the Infocomm Media Development Authority to block numbers known to be used to perpetuate scams, including those that start with "+656" or spoof numbers of Government agencies.

The Anti-Scam Centre works closely with financial institutions, for example, to swiftly freeze bank accounts suspected to be involved in scammers' operations and enhance banks' fraud controls to facilitate timely detection and blocking of suspicious transactions.

The Police have also collaborated with the National Crime Prevention Council and GovTech to develop ScamShield, a mobile application which filters out scam messages and blocks calls from phone numbers that were used in other scam cases or which were reported by ScamShield users.

As I have mentioned, enforcement, alone, will never be sufficient. The scammers will adapt and find a way around our measures. Combatting scams has to be a whole-of-society effort, and we urge the public to be alert, and to raise our collective awareness of scams by sharing scam prevention tips with your friends and family.