Singapore Police and Hong Kong Police Join Forces to Recover $197,000 Stolen Funds for Scam Victim

The Singapore Police and Hong Kong Police have cooperated to detect a scam perpetrated by technical means and successfully recovered $197,000.

On September 24, a 73-year-old from Singapore reported that $197,000 had been illegally transferred from her bank account.

After receiving the report, the Anti-Scam Center of Singapore (ASC) quickly tracked the flow of the stolen funds and found it in a Hong Kong bank account. The Singapore Police immediately contacted the Anti-Deception Coordination Centre (ADCC) of the Hong Kong Police Force.

After investigation, the police found that the victim had clicked on an unsolicited pop-up while surfing the Internet and followed the instructions in the pop-up to contact the “Microsoft Hotline”. During the call, the scammer claimed that the elderly's bank account had been compromised and was related to an “SPF cybercrime department officer” case.

In order to help the victim “detecting possible scams on her accounts”, the scammer coaxed the victim into logging into her bank account, while using screen-sharing software to steal private information such as the account number and password, and took control of the account, transferring the balance to another Hong Kong bank account.

With the cooperation of ASC Singapore and ADCC Hong Kong, the stolen $197,000 was successfully recovered for the victim.