SINGAPORE - Current law enforcements tackling online cheating and cyber extortion cases are sufficient and there are no plans to create new channels for people to report their cases, shared Mr Masagos Zulkifli Bin Masagos Mohamad, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of Home Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs at parliament today.

In his speech, Mr Masagos said that the enforcement laws are adequate, but they still need to continue to monitor them as cyber-crimes evolve with time.

“We do not want to create more channels, as there are already existing ones such as NPCs, NPPs,” said Mr Masagos.

For the half year of this year, there were 787 cases of online cheating and cyber extortion cases, a 320 per cent increase from the 187 cases in the same period last year. Mr Masagos explained that the rise in the number of police reports could be partly due to greater public awareness and willingness to report such crimes.

Asked whether there is a dedicated team with the necessary skills set to address cyber-crime, Mr Masagos said: “Our Police are trained and have had to upgrade themselves to understand the nature of these crimes, how it is perpetrated, including working with foreign counterparts.”

As efforts, the Police and the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) have jointly developed public education collaterals pertaining to online crimes for display on bus stop panels, at MRT stations and over the Internet, including online forums and shopping sites.

By the end of this year, crime prevention advisories would also be featured on the internet banking websites’ of major financial institutions.

Members of the public are encouraged to contact the Police immediately should they become victims of any crime, be it online or otherwise. This can be done through existing crime reporting channels such as the Neighbourhood Police Centres (NPCs) and Neighbourhood Police Posts (NPPs), as well as Police’s online reporting portal.