Singapore lost a staggering S$1.1 billion ($822 million) to scams last year, as cases surged by 10.6% from the previous year, police said on Tuesday.
The total amount lost to fraudsters rose by 70.6% from S$651.8 million in 2023, according to the annual statistics on scams and cybercrime released by the Singapore Police Force.
The total number of scam cases also increased by 10.6% to 51,501 cases in 2024 from 46,563 in 2023.
Cryptocurrency losses made up about 24.3% of scam losses last year, compared to about 6.8% in 2023.
E-commerce scams were the top scam type flagged by the police, followed by job scams, phishing scams, investment scams and fake friend call scams.
A single malware-enabled scam case saw the loss of about S$125 million in cryptocurrency, according to statistics.
SPF noted that its Anti-Scam Command - which was set up in March 2022 - managed to recover more than S$182 million of scam losses in 2024, making the net loss about S$930 million.
Through 'proactive interventions' with victims at various stages of being scammed, the Anti-Scam Command unit and its partners also averted at least S$483 million in potential losses, SPF added.
More than 70% of the scam cases last year led to losses of less than S$5,000, the police said, adding that the median loss per case fell by 12.6% from S$1,590 in 2023 to S$1,389 in 2024.
However, there was an overall increase in the total amount lost - driven by a small number of cases with 'very high' losses.
Scam cases with losses of at least S$100,000 made up 3.3% of the total cases last year but accounted for 70.8% of the losses.
Four cases, in particular, accounted for S$237.9 million.
The police estimated that the amount lost in these four instances accounted for 21.4% of the total scam losses in 2024.
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