PUBLISHED ONFebruary 05, 2026 11:06 AMBYEsther LamSince the start of the year, there have been at least seven reported cases and at least $51,600 lost to job scams involving the performance of online tasks related to digital Pokemon trading cards, said the police.
In a statement on Thursday (Feb 5), the police said that victims would receive unsolicited calls from Malaysian phone numbers about a job opportunity involving online tasks.
The job would require victims to register for an account and initiate a cryptocurrency deposit on a fraudulent website.
Victims would then be able to select digital Pokemon trading cards on the site and "earn" a commission based on the card value, which would be "deposited" into their registered account.
Subsequently, they would encounter "exclusive" high-value cards which required them to make larger cryptocurrency deposits to the website before they could "earn" their commission.
In some cases, victims would have negative account balances and had to make additional deposits to restore their accounts.
Victims would realise that they had been scammed when they were unable to withdraw their "earnings" from the fraudulent website, said the police.
Members of the public are advised to safeguard against scams by using the ACT (Add, Check, Tell) framework, which involves adding the ScamShield app and setting security features.
If in doubt, call the ScamShield helpline at 1799.
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