PUBLISHED ONOctober 26, 2025 5:50 AMBYCrystal TanA 15-year-old were among 24 persons arrested for their suspected involvement in a government official impersonation scam. Another nine are assisting with investigations.
This follows an island-wide anti-scam enforcement operation conducted between Oct 23 and 24.
The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said in a press release on Sunday (Oct 26) that those arrested are aged between 15 and 34, while those assisting with investigations are between 16 and 70.
SPF's Commercial Affairs Department conducted the operation after a victim lodged a report on Oct 22, claiming he had been tricked by scammers impersonating officers from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS).
The victim had received an unsolicited call from someone posing as a staff from M1, claiming he had an existing mobile plan contract.
When he denied this, the call was transferred to scammers acting as MAS officers, who allegedly told him that a bank account under his name was frozen and his assets have to be safeguarded for investigations.
Between Oct 14 and 22, the victim was deceived into transferring over $1.1 million.
He was instructed to purchase gold bars worth about $350,000, handing them over to an unknown woman on two separate occasions, and transfer cryptocurrency amounting to around $124,900, more than $600,000 via YouTrip QR codes, and $26,500 via PayNow.
The scammers instructed the victim to register for a cryptocurrency account to purchase cryptocurrency before transferring it, and to repeatedly scan QR codes sent to him, claiming they were for payment verification purposes.
Although OCBC contacted the victim twice after flagging suspicious transfers, the man was allegedly coached by the scammers to lie that the funds were for investment and gifts.
On Oct 22, the bank detected suspicious transaction activity when the victim was trying to make a second payment to the same PayNow number.
OCBC then alerted the Anti-Scam Centre, whose officers managed to intervene and convince the man that he had been scammed.
Investigations revealed that the funds in the YouTrip accounts were mostly withdrawn at overseas ATMs within the same day, and some accounts were drained through online payments and transfers.
Among the 24 arrested, 23 are believed to have sold or rented their payment accounts to criminal syndicates for monetary gain.
Two out of the nine being investigated were victims of government official impersonation scams themselves, losing about $1,600 and $210,000 respectively after opening YouTrip accounts under the scammers' instructions.
The suspects are being investigated for offences including cheating, facilitating unauthorised access to the bank's computer systems, and money laundering. These offences can carry jail terms of up to three years, fines or both.
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