Percentage of Financial Crime Cases with Confiscated Assets Returned to Victims and Forfeited by Government

4 Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Minister for Home Affairs (a) what percentage of financial crime cases that involve confiscated assets result in full or partial restitution to victims; (b) what proportion of seized scam proceeds in the past five years have been forfeited to the state rather than returned to victims; and (c) what measures are in place to ensure that all reasonably identifiable scam victims receive restitution before funds are transferred to the Government's consolidated fund.

The Minister of State for Home Affairs (Ms Sun Xueling) (for the Minister for Home Affairs): When investigating financial crime cases, the Police would freeze bank accounts and seize any assets suspected to be proceeds of crime or which constitute evidence. The Police do their best to ascertain the ownership of the seized property by examining bank transaction records. The seized property may often be needed for continuing investigations or subsequent court proceedings. If they are not so needed, the Police would apply to the Court for the property to be returned to the rightful owners.

Where the persons entitled to the seized property cannot be ascertained or found, the Police would publish a notice in the Government Gazette to request for persons to establish their claim to the property within six months. The seized property would only be forfeited to the state if no one establishes a claim after the six-month notice period.

It is operationally challenging to apportion and thus track the amount of scam proceeds returned to victims or forfeited to the state. This is because seized proceeds could be co-mingled with other non-scam-related activities, such as cases involving unlicensed moneylending proceeds. Seized proceeds may also not be directly correlated to crime committed in that same year. It would also be resource-intensive, given the high volume of scam cases. The Ministry of Home Affairs will explore the feasibility of tracking these amounts in the longer term.

Mr Speaker: Mr Giam.

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song (Aljunied): I thank the Minister of State for her reply. In the case of the $3 billion money laundering case that was reported recently, has the Government Gazette been published to invite potential victims to submit their claims, and if not, when would that be?

Secondly, has the Government considered establishing a scam victim restitution fund which is financed by the proceeds of these confiscated money laundering proceeds so that local scam victims can also be able to make claims and get some restitution for, in many cases, the thousands of dollars that they have lost in scams?

Ms Sun Xueling: I thank the Member for his follow-up questions. Specifically, on the $3 billion case, as it is specific to that case, could I invite the Member to file a separate Parliamentary Question, because it is quite case-specific?

On his other proposal regarding whether or not there could be a consolidated fund of some sorts where victims could perhaps through the fund, be able to recover some of their lost amounts, I would like to say that various proposals are being considered to see how best to be able to compensate victims. But what I would like to add is the operational challenges that I had shared earlier in my main reply, which is that often times, the monies that are recovered by the Anti-Scam Centre, through the course of investigations, we are not able to ascertain specifically that all the monies recovered actually all pertain to scams. Because often times, the syndicates that run these scams operate a lot of various other crime business lines as well. I had mentioned illegal moneylending, for instance. So, the proceeds which are recovered by the Anti-Scam Centre are not just scam proceeds. There could be other proceeds that pertain to other forms of crime and therefore, there are other victims who may also similarly feel that they have a claim to those proceeds. So, that is the first point I would like to make.

The second point I would like to make is that it is often very difficult to be able to track whether this dollar that is part of the proceeds and monies recovered actually is that dollar which was lost to one particular victim. And that is because of the co-mingling of funds. I think people who understand the scam landscape know that this co-mingling and in the cases where cryptocurrency is involved because of the use of cryptocurrency tumblers and mixers, it is often very, very difficult to ascertain for that dollar recovered, from which victim that dollar has actually been scammed from.

As a result of that, it is thus going to be very difficult for us to be able to say, when you have a consolidated fund, which victim actually has a right to the monies that have been recovered.

The next point I would like to add is that, as you can tell from the latest numbers, total losses are $1.1 billion this year; monies recovered this year are $182 million. It is a fraction of the total amounts of monies lost. So, there are going to be far more claimants for the monies than there are actually proceeds in the monies that are recovered. So, at the end of the day, victims if they ever are to be able to recover some portion of their monies, it is going to be a tiny fraction of what they lost in the first place.

The very last point I would like to add is that we should also be concerned about how scammers, if they know that we have such a consolidated fund, how they may try to pivot and see how they could potentially entice other types of mules to participate in scam activities and potentially then, try to "recover" the monies from this scam recovery fund.

So, I am just trying to share with you that there are various, various difficulties and concerns that we have. But at the end of the day, principle-wise, I agree with you that we should do our very best to be able to find some way of recovering proceeds and of course, compensating victims. [Please refer to "Clarification by Minister of State for Home Affairs", Official Report, 28 February 2025, Vol 95, Issue 155, Correction By Written Statement section.]