Arya News - Scam losses in Singapore fell in the first half of 2026, but 8 in 10 victims still handed money over voluntarily, tricked by social engineering. Investment scams caused the biggest damage, and even Pokémon card pre-orders became a favorite lure.
SINGAPORE – The scam situation in Singapore has continued to improve since 2025, with losses dropping to $410.6 million in the first six months of 2026.
Victims lost $500.2 million during the same period in 2025, with $913.1 million lost that year.
In releasing the mid-year scam statistics on Aug 26, the police said there were significant dips in the number of cases for certain scam types like insurance services, fake friend call and phishing scams in the first half of 2026.
Measures that led to the drop included efforts to prevent and block scammers from reaching victims, by directing Apple, Google and Meta to implement anti-scam measures on their platforms.
The police said that in the first half of 2026, they also disrupted over 47,000 scam-related mobile lines, 37,500 WhatsApp lines, 31,600 online monikers and 52,200 malicious websites.
Despite these efforts, eight in 10 victims were still being manipulated into handing their money to scammers.
This showed that instead of gaining direct control of bank accounts, scammers were using social engineering to deceive victims into voluntarily making transactions.
The police said the number of scam cases fell by around 14 per cent from 19,644 cases in the first half of 2025 to 16,821 during the same period in 2026.
The police previously said victims lost over $456.4 million in the first six months of 2025, but this figure increased to $500.2 million due to the reclassification of cases.
Singapore has lost more than $4 billion to scams since 2019.
Despite the improving situation in 2026, the police warned that scams remain the dominant crime type in Singapore, noting that elderly victims had the highest average losses across all age groups.
The elderly, aged 65 and above, made up 14.4 per cent of scam victims, with the average amount lost per victim at $42,347. The police said most of these victims fell prey to government official impersonation and investment scams.
Meanwhile, adults aged 30 to 49 made up 36 per cent of scam victims, with most falling for e-commerce, phishing and job scams.
E-commerce was the most common scam type, with 3,865 cases in the first half of 2026 and losses of over $8 million.
Cases involving Pokemon trading cards surged from 279 in the first half of 2025 to 605 during the same period in 2026.
A total of $1.2 million was lost to Pokemon card scams in the first half of 2026, up from the $472,000 lost in the first six months of 2025.
The police said this increase was largely driven by the rise of the pre-order trend, which saw scammers persuading victims to make a deposit for the cards with delivery promised months later.
No cards would be delivered.
$170m lost to investment scams
Investment scams were the third most common scam type in the first half of 2026, with 2,256 cases reported and $169.8 million lost.
The average amount lost to this scam type was around $75,000. Investment scams recorded the highest amount lost among all scam types in the first six months of 2026.
The police said they observed a new trend where scammers would impersonate entities like the National University of Singapore and digital brokerage Moomoo to lend credibility to their ruse.
Scammers would then post online advertisements offering free investment tips or strategies. Victims would be invited into WhatsApp chat groups masquerading as investment learning communities.
Scammers posing as mentors would then provide seemingly reliable investment tips and stock picks.
Other scammers posing as members would attest to the “good advice” given by these fake mentors, further enticing victims to invest.
Government official impersonation scams recorded the second-highest losses among all scam types in the first half of 2026, with $90.8 million lost. Four in 10 victims were aged 65 and above.
Meanwhile, 94 per cent of cases involved the impersonation of representatives from banks, telcos or financial institutions, as well as local government officials, through calls.
The police said victims would receive unsolicited calls from scammers impersonating representatives from banks, telcos or financial institutions, who would cite suspicious credit card transactions or outstanding bills.
When victims deny involvement, they are transferred to scammers impersonating government officials like the police, Monetary Authority of Singapore or Ministry of Law, who would accuse them of money laundering.
Scammers would then instruct the victims to transfer money to “safety accounts” designated by the Government. In many cases, victims were also instructed to hand over cash and valuables for “investigation” purposes.
Meanwhile, despite not being among the top 10 scam types, business e-mail compromise scams recorded a significant increase from $19.5 million lost in the first half of 2025 to $57.3 million lost during the same period in 2026.
The police said scammers would impersonate suppliers, vendors, clients or even senior executives within the company to deceive business employees into diverting payments to fraudulent bank accounts.
$97m recovered
Losses involving cryptocurrency remained significant, reaching $65.5 million, which made up around 16 per cent of the total amount lost to scams, said the police. This was a 43 per cent decrease from the $115 million lost during the same period in 2025.
The police said that in the first half of 2026, the Anti-Scam Centre recovered over $97 million of scam losses, including $8 million in cryptocurrency.
To prevent stubborn scam victims from continuing to transfer money voluntarily to scammers, the police also issued 18 restriction orders (ROs), which limit the banking transactions on an individual’s accounts.
This comes after the Protection from Scams Act was operationalised in July 2025.
ROs last for up to 30 days and can be extended up to five times, which means they can be implemented for up to six months.
Over 2,900 suspected money mules and scammers have been investigated, and at least 470 were charged in the first half of 2026.
Since laws allowing caning for scammers and mules took effect in December 2025, offenders in five cases have received between one and three strokes, with an average sentence of 26 months’ jail.
In April, a 23-year-old Malaysian was the first money mule to be given caning as a punishment. He was sentenced to seven months’ jail and one stroke of the cane over his role in collecting 1 million yen (S$8,000) in cash from an elderly victim of an investment scam.
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