SINGAPORE - Nine people aged between 32 and 57 are under investigation for their suspected involvement in technical support scams, through which victims have lost at least $6.7 million in all.

The police said in a statement on March 29 that eight men and one woman are believed to be involved in a ruse in which scammers impersonated Microsoft or Apple tech support employees.

The suspects were hauled up after an anti-scam enforcement operation between March 25 and 28 that involved officers from the Commercial Affairs Department and the seven police land divisions.

Since January 2024, the police have received at least 78 reports of such technical support scams.

Victims received pop-up messages on their laptops or desktops claiming their electronic devices had been compromised.

These alerts contained the contact numbers of fake tech support employees, who would trick the victims into granting them remote access to their devices.

The police said: “To reinforce the deceit, the call would be forwarded to another scammer claiming to be a law enforcement officer, who would use the remote access function and pretend to help victims lodge a fraudulent police report through a scam website. Subsequently, the scammers would direct the victims to log in to their iBanking account on the pretext of helping to apprehend the ‘hackers’.”

Once the victims logged in to their bank account, the scammers would use remote access to transfer money out of the account.

In some cases, the scammers would even guide victims to create cryptocurrency accounts or one-time passwords to authorise online banking transactions.

In these cases, victims realised they had been scammed when they saw unauthorised transfers or deductions made from their bank accounts.

Preliminary investigations revealed that most of the suspects had allegedly facilitated the scams by receiving money reportedly for cryptocurrency trading, the police said.

One suspect had allegedly received money in his bank account and transferred the sum to his cryptocurrency trading account, purportedly to meet the minimum sum in his trading account for withdrawal.

The person, however, did not manage to withdraw his money from the trading account.

The police advised the public to do the following if they believe they have been scammed:

• Switch off the computer immediately to limit the scammer’s further actions.
• Uninstall any software that has been installed on the scammers’ instructions.
• Perform a full antivirus scan on the computer and delete any malware detected.
• Report the incident to the bank to stop further activities relating to bank accounts.
• Change Internet banking credentials and remove any unauthorised payees.
• Report the incident to the bank and the police.

For more information on scams, please visit scamalert.sg or call the anti-scam helpline on 1800-722-6688. Those with information about such scams can contact the police on 1800-255-0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness