Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Empowering the Anti-Scam Centre to Inform All Banks to Freeze Scam Victims’ Bank Accounts

Question:

Mr Gan Thiam Poh: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs whether the Anti‐Scam Centre (ASC) can be empowered to be a one‐stop centre for scam victims to inform all banks to freeze their bank accounts to prevent and minimise further monetary losses from cyber theft.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1. When a scam is reported to the Police Anti-Scam Centre (ASC), the focus of the ASC is to quickly trace where the monies have been transferred to – usually the bank accounts of money mules and scammers – and quickly freeze those accounts to prevent the monies from being siphoned out of Singapore. At the same time, it will check if there are other victims, and contact those victims who might not yet be in the know.

2. The ASC will also work with telecommunications companies to terminate the scam-tainted phone lines, and social media platforms to take down the scam-related online accounts and advertisements.

3. ASC will also flag the victims’ affected bank accounts to the banks for their follow-up, which may entail freezing of the accounts.

4. However, the scam victim should not just rely on the Police to freeze his bank accounts. There are many actions which the Police have to undertake as soon as a scam is reported. The victim should also immediately contact his banks directly to freeze his accounts, or better still, activate the emergency self-service “kill switch” provided by the banks.