Singapore Police Force Reports 51,501 Scam Cases and Over $1.1 in Losses for 2024

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) has released its Annual Scams and Cybercrime Brief 2024, highlighting that scams and cybercrime continued to be a significant concern in the year. The report reveals a 10.8% increase in scam and cybercrime cases, totaling 55,810 cases in 2024, up from 50,376 cases in 2023. Scams alone accounted for 92.3% of these cases.

The number of scam cases rose by 10.6%, reaching 51,501 cases in 2024, compared to 46,563 cases in 2023. The total amount lost to scams surged by 70.6% to at least $1.1 billion, up from $651.8 million in 2023. Notably, a small number of cases with very high losses, including four cases amounting to $237.9 million, drove the increase in total losses.

Source: SPF

On the positive side, the Anti-Scam Command (ASCom) successfully recovered more than $182 million in scam losses, bringing the net scam losses to approximately $930 million. Through proactive interventions with victims, the ASCom and its partners prevented an additional $483 million in potential losses.

The report also sheds light on victims’ age groups, with 70.9% being youths, young adults, and adults below 50. Although the elderly constituted a smaller proportion of scam victims, they suffered the highest average losses per victim among all age groups.

There were significant decreases in the number of fake friend call scams and malware-enabled scams, as well as social media impersonation scams. Conversely, there were increases in e-commerce scams, phishing scams, investment scams, and government official impersonation scams.

Self-effected transfers accounted for 82.4% of the total reported scam cases. In most instances, scammers manipulated victims into performing monetary transactions through deception and social engineering, without gaining direct control of the victims' accounts.

On the enforcement front, the ASCom, along with the Scam Strike Teams in the seven Police Land Divisions, conducted 25 island-wide anti-scam operations in 2024. These efforts led to the investigation of more than 8,000 money mules and scammers.