PUBLISHED ONJanuary 09, 2026 12:05 PMBYSean LerThe police have disrupted over 3,500 scam attempts during a two-month-long operation which ended on Dec 31, 2025, preventing potential losses of over $34.2 million.
In a news release on Friday (Jan 9), the police said that they partnered with five banks— DBS, GXS, OCBC, Standard Chartered Bank and UOB — for the operation which began on Nov 1, 2025.
"(We) leveraged robotic process automation (RPA) to identify victims of e-commerce, government official impersonation, investment, job and loan scams.
"This coordinated response draws on the swift exchange of information between the police and the banks to enable early intervention," the police added.
RPA is the technology that enables computer software to emulate and integrate actions typically performed by humans interacting with digital systems.
The use of RPA has enabled the police to automate information sharing and processing, and the mass distribution of SMS alerts.
In turn, this allows the police and partnering banks to enhance their outreach — to promptly alert a larger number of victims within a short period of time to prevent further losses.
The police said that this operation is the sixth instance in 2025 where the police's Anti-Scam Command has partnered with banks to combat scams using RPA to detect potential scam victims.
"This proactive victim-centric approach potentially averted over $34.2 million in losses that could otherwise have been transferred to scammers," the police added.
AsiaOne understands that the six operations throughout 2025 have resulted in over 26,000 suspected victims being alerted via SMS, potentially averting losses of over $267.5 million.
Caning for scams and scams-related offences — which were among amendments to the Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill passed on Nov 30 — came into effect on Dec 30.
Scammers and members/recruiters of scam syndicates now face mandatory caning of at least six strokes, up to a maximum of 24 strokes.
Meanwhile, mules who enable scammers by laundering their proceeds, providing SIM cards or providing Singpass credentials will face discretionary caning of up to 12 strokes.
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