Two men charged over suspected involvement in banking-related malware scams
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An array of items were seized, including cash amounting to more than $25,000, 15 luxury watches, and gold comprising 34 bars.
PHOTO: SINGAPORE POLICE FORCE
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SINGAPORE - Two men were charged in court on Friday for their suspected involvement in banking-related malware scams.
Jerry Chua Zhen Shen, 32, and Png Kok Wah, 56, were each handed one charge of acquiring cash when they had reasons to believe that it was from a criminal conduct by another person.
The police said on Friday that between June and September 2023, they received multiple reports on such banking-related malware cases, which typically involved unauthorised transactions from victims’ bank accounts even though they did not divulge their one-time passwords to anyone.
On Wednesday and Thursday, officers from the Criminal Investigation Department conducted an enforcement operation at the residential units of both men, leading to their arrests.
An array of items were seized, including cash amounting to more than $25,000, 15 luxury watches, gold comprising 34 bars, seven coins, three rings and one pendant.
An iPad, five mobile phones and cryptocurrency amounting to more than $240,000 were also seized.
The police said that six bank accounts with a total balance of about $112,500 were frozen to prevent further misuse.
They advised the public against downloading applications from third-party or dubious sites that can lead to malware being installed on their phones, computers or other devices.
Such malware has resulted in confidential and sensitive data, such as banking credentials, being stolen.
“To avoid being an accomplice to crimes, members of the public should reject requests by others to use their bank accounts or mobile lines, as they will be held accountable if these are found to be linked to unlawful activities,” said the police.
In September, The Straits Times reported that at least $10 million was lost by over 750 scam victims in the first half of 2023 due to unauthorised banking transactions performed by malware.
The same month, ST reported that a 74-year-old man lost $70,000 – which was most of his life savings – after downloading a third-party app to buy Peking duck.
He was enticed by a deal he saw on Facebook that offered $23.80 for a 1.5kg Peking duck with $5 shipping and contacted the “seller”.
The “seller” instructed him to download a third-party app called Grab&Go on his phone.
He found out later that the app contained malware and the scammers had transferred $59,000 out of his bank accounts and took a credit advance of about $11,000 using his credit card.
