SINGAPORE - Singaporean and Malaysian police have crippled two international scam syndicates, arresting 15 people in a series of raids in Johor, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

The raids were conducted between Monday (Dec 6) and Friday (Dec 10) by the Commercial Affairs Department and seven divisions of the Singapore Police Force (SPF) and the Commercial Crime Investigation Department of the Royal Malaysia Police.

The syndicates are alleged to have been conducting job scams and fixed deposit scams, the SPF said in a release on Friday, and are believed to have pocketed more than $1.5 million from more than 100 victims.

The alleged perpetrators arrested were between the ages of 17 and 44, and comprised 13 men and two women.

Of the 15, eight were arrested in Malaysia while seven were apprehended in Singapore.

Those arrested in Singapore are believed to have facilitated the syndicates' crimes by carrying out bank transfers, withdrawing funds, or giving their bank accounts to the scam syndicates in exchange for money, police said.

Investigations showed the two syndicates were targeting both Singaporeans and Malaysians, and laundered their ill-gotten gains in Malaysia.

The SPF said that since October this year, they have seen new variants of job scams targeting Singaporeans.

Criminals operated by posting job advertisements offering quick cash on different social media platforms or befriending victims on messaging applications before introducing fake jobs.

Victims, who were mostly job seekers, would be required to help improve sales on online platforms by buying or selling products. These platforms were controlled by the scammers.

The scammers also asked victims to complete tasks like boosting the rating or visibility of the products.

The victims would then be told to sign up for accounts on the platforms controlled by the scammers, who then asked them to top-up their accounts with cash in order to perform the tasks. In return, the victims would be promised commissions between 0.6 per cent and 20 per cent.

Victims would be provided with bank accounts belonging to unknown individuals to depositpayments.

Initially, the scammers would reimburse the victims and pay them the agreed commissions, but they would then begin asking for larger sums of money, dangling the prospect of even bigger commissions.

Victims would eventually discover they had been scammed when they were unable to withdraw money from the accounts, said the police.

The police cautioned job seekers to be wary of job advertisements that promise a high salary for relatively simple responsibilities.

"Legitimate businesses will not require job seekers to use their own bank accounts to receive money on behalf of the businesses, or to make upfront payments to secure the job offers and earn commissions," said the SPF, in the release.

Deputy Director of the Financial Investigations Group, CAD, Ian Wong, said: "Scams continue to be a serious crime concern. Transnational crime syndicates will target you if you are not careful and believe that their promises of high commissions for minimal work, or high interest rates for fixed deposits, are genuine."