SINGAPORE — In its heyday, volunteer group Crime Library — best known for mobilising searches for missing people — put up 3,000 flyers weekly and handled notable cases such as that of Huang Na, the missing eight-year-old girl who was later found murdered, in 2004.

However, with the rise of social media, its work has taken a different tone since the group’s inception in 2002, and now extends to areas where the authorities do not or “cannot engage in”.

That includes reuniting long-lost family members or “luring” perpetrators of love scams.

The authorities have “improved tremendously” in handling reports of missing persons, said Crime Library founder Joseph Tan.

“The police now enlist the media’s help and broadcast via Facebook, and we don’t really need to duplicate this sphere,” said the 50-year-old former police officer.

“And with hundreds and thousands of CCTV cameras placed all over Singapore, I’d say if you’re not murdered, the chances of missing persons being found are very high.”

One recent example of social media being used to try and locate a missing person was the case of Cui Yajie, a 31-year-old engineer from China. After she failed to report for work on July 12, Cui’s friends and colleagues shared the news of her disappearance on social media, seeking her safe return.

However, their hopes were dashed when her remains were found on July 20 near a deserted road in Lim Chu Kang. A 48-year-old man, Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock, has been charged with her murder.

Amid the changing trends, Crime Library has seen a 60 per cent drop in the number of people seeking its help over the years, said Mr Tan. Its attention is now focused on more complex cases, where individuals have gone missing outside of Singapore.

The group makes about a dozen “overseas missions” yearly to places such as Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong and China, where it works with foreign media agencies and embassies to search for missing persons, said Mr Tan. For instance, the group found the decomposed body of an 84-year-old after visiting his farm in Malaysia. In 2012, it also went to Bangkok in search of a pair of best friends, who remain missing.

“Most of the next-of-kin will want to see extended efforts in the search ... They may have made police reports, but we think that having us in person in the other countries makes a difference,” said Mr Tan.

“(It may cause) the local police to act differently ... We’re an ‘action people’.”

The group also informs the ministry of foreign affairs in the respective countries of the purpose and timings of these self-funded trips, in the hope of “putting pressure” on the authorities to step up search efforts, he added.

A significant proportion of Crime Library’s cases now involve people seeking long-lost family members. In June, a plea for one such search came from cancer-stricken divorcee Koh Choon Li, who hoped to see his children for the last time.

Mr Tan, who was approached by social workers from the nursing home Mr Koh was in, managed to track down the man’s ex-wife and his 32-year-old son, Wee Siong. Unfortunately, this happened a week after the elder Koh had died.

“I’m thankful they didn’t give up looking for us after my father died, or we still wouldn’t have known the fact,” Mr Koh’s son said. “No matter how bad things ended between my parents, he still was my father.”

At the height of its success, Crime Library received up to 50 calls a month from people looking for help to locate missing persons or find information on traffic accidents and criminal cases.

In its first four years of operation, the group put up flyers for 143 cases of missing persons, of which more than 80 per cent were found. Its big break came when Huang Na’s disappearance gripped the Republic’s attention.

Crime Library rallied hundreds of volunteers to put up flyers in Singapore and Malaysia, and received a tip-off from the ex-girlfriend of a vegetable seller, who turned out to be the girl’s killer.

Between 2006 and 2012, it partnered with public transport operator SMRT to display missing persons’ posters at all its MRT stations and six bus interchanges for free.

Today, Crime Library is fronted by just four volunteers, down from 273 at its peak. Its online portal (www.crimelibrary.com.sg) also sees scant updates — often because family members do not want their cases to be publicised, Mr Tan said. “We work with a very lean team now; there are volunteers whom we’ve not activated for three years,” said Mr Tan, who manages its 24-hour hotline and runs a recycling company as his full-time job.

“Everything costs money these days; we need to reserve the best resources for the most needy cases,” he said, adding that the group sustains itself through volunteers’ donations.