Police releases advisory on fake Singapore Police website

SINGAPORE — Hours after the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) alerted the public about a fake ICA website, the Singapore Police also issued a public warning about a fake police website in disguise. 

The website is actually a phishing site designed to extract useful personal information and privileged banking details of unsuspecting victims.

The official Singapore Police Force (SPF) website is www.police.gov.sg, and does not have an “e-services” page titled “Bank Encryption”, the police note.

Without releasing the address to the fake site, the police on Friday (March 24) said the link is typically shared over the phone by scam callers guising themselves as police officers.

The victims would be told that they are suspected of being involved in criminal activities such as money laundering as they are “holders of bank accounts with excessively large amounts of money”, said the police in an advisory.

For “investigation purposes”, they are then told to follow instructions to provide confidential information such as credit card details and internet banking credentials on the fake site.

This scam method has resulted in “extensive monetary losses” in most reported cases, the police also said.

In the advisory, the police urged the public to refrain from divulging personal information and bank details, whether on a website or to callers over the phone.

“Personal information and bank details such as internet bank account usernames and passwords, OTP codes from tokens, are useful to criminals,” they said.

Advising the public to also ignore instructions to remit or transfer money, the police said: “No government agency will inform you to make a payment through a telephone call, especially to a third party’s bank account.”

Members of the public should ignore suspicious calls from a local number as well, as scammers may use caller ID spoofing technology to mask actual phone numbers, which may be from overseas.

To check the validity of the request, the police said to “hang up, wait five minutes, then call the number back”.

Last September, the police issued a similar advisory about a fake SPF website also using the same method, after a 41-year-old woman lost more than S$80,000 after she keyed in her personal details and internet banking credentials on the fake site when she was told she is a suspect in a money laundering case.