Fake Singapore Police Man Video Call - from India/Bangladesh region 👮 Video Call Syndicate

I read this news of fake Singapore police scam a few months ago but only wanted to write this post down after someone actually captured the video conversation with the scammer.

Basically victims will get a whatsapp voice call from the scammer who will be posing as a Singapore police (SPF) CID (Crime Investigation Department) Officer. The Whatsapp profile of the scammer will use a picture of the Singapore police force. The scammer will wear a Singapore police uniform with the Singapore police force greenscreen background. From the whatsapp voice call, the scammer will sternly ask the victim to turn on video call.

The scammer will then identify himself as a sergeant from the Singapore Police and show a fake police identity card. The scammer then requests the victim to show his identity card to create the illusion is a real police asking victim for identification documents.

The scammer will then scare the victim by saying the victim has been implicated in some crime (eg money laundering, identity being stolen) and his bank account is in the process of being frozen and the victim needs to empty out all his bank accounts to a escrow account of the scammer to avoid all the money being frozen. Once the victim transferred the money the scammer will disappear. Sometimes the scammer will trick the victim into providing his bank website id and password and even OTP (one time pin) to "assist" the victim to move his money out of the going-to-be frozen bank account.

The scam is quite successful and many victims fell for it in Singapore. The scammer uses the element of fear of authorities and scare tactics to make the victim jump into action.

The scammer give away signs are as follows:

usually a person with Indian descent
identifies himself with 2 English names (eg John Michaels, Peter Smith)
speaking in an Indian accent despite identifying as a Singapore police officer
discrepancies in uniform (picture shows scammer wearing a NY Yankees baseball hat)
wearing a face mask while doing video call (why??)
ends sentences with "my dear"

This scam might not work well in Malaysia as the scammers are most likely from India/Bangladesh and thus will not be able to converse in Bahasa Malaysia as the Malaysian police force predominantly speak only in Bahasa Malaysia. I would see scammers in Malaysia recruit locals or Indonesians instead to conduct a similar scam in Malaysia.