SINGAPORE – Standard Chartered Bank and the Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) thwarted a government official impersonation scam in which the victim nearly lost over $260,000.

The case involved a 79-year-old victim who received an unsolicited call in September from a scammer impersonating a bank officer, the police said on Dec 8.

The scammer claimed that the victim’s account had been frozen for investigation, before transferring the call to a second scammer.

Pretending to be a Singapore Police Force official, this second scammer instructed the victim to report her whereabouts four times a day, and not to divulge details about the investigation.

In such scams, the fake bank officer may accuse victims of having outstanding credit card charges on their cards that are linked to criminal or money laundering activities.

The second scammer, pretending to be a government official, may then ask victims to relinquish their banking details or open new bank accounts as part of the putative investigation, and to keep the investigation a secret.

Under the instructions of the second scammer, the victim sold her unit trust investments held with StanChart in November, which were worth more than $260,000.

She was then asked to transfer the money to a third-party bank account provided by the scammer, allegedly to assist in investigations. 

However, the transaction was detected by StanChart relationship manager Tan Kah Boon, who noticed the victim’s unusual banking behaviour and outgoing transfers to a suspected mule’s bank account.

He escalated the case to the bank’s anti-fraud team, which subsequently reached out to the ASC for help.

Together, they immediately traced the flow of funds, which led to the identifying and freezing of all the scammer-controlled accounts.

This blocked the transaction from going through and prevented any losses for the victim.

ASC officers also alerted the victim about the scam attempt.

The police credited the timely intervention to StanChart’s “rigorous emphasis on anti-scam training” and close collaboration with the ASC, which works closely with financial institutions and stakeholders to combat scams.

The police also advised the public to adopt preventative measures, such as never installing software from unverified sources and ensuring that no one is watching when keying personal particulars or bank login details.

They added that people should tell their friends and family about potential scams, and not to be pressured to act impulsively.