'DHL' parcel scam: 23-year-old suspect arrested

'DHL' parcel scam: 23-year-old suspect arrested
Posted 19 Jul 2016 21:05 Updated 19 Jul 2016 21:20

SINGAPORE: A 23-year-old man has been arrested for his suspected involvement in a "DHL" parcel scam, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said on Tuesday (Jul 19).

In a news release, SPF said a 32-year-old woman lodged a report on Jul 4 regarding a call received from an unknown person who claimed to be working for courier company DHL. She was told that she had a parcel containing illegal goods that was detained by Chinese Customs. The call was then transferred to another person whose number was reflected in caller ID as "999", and he claimed to be from the police, SPF said.

The victim was then asked to provide her Internet banking credentials, including the one-time password (OTP) from her Internet banking dongle. She later discovered that her i-banking account had been accessed without her knowledge and about S$36,000 had been transferred to an unknown bank account.

Officers from the Criminal Investigation Department who investigated the case arrested a 23-year-old suspect on Monday.

Preliminary investigations revealed that the suspect is believed to be involved in at least five other similar cases in which the victims had suffered losses amounting to a total of about S$90,000, SPF said.

The suspect will be charged in court on Wednesday for dishonestly receiving stolen property. If convicted, he faces up to five years' imprisonment, a fine or both.

The arrest comes amid a rising trend in phone scams. Just four days ago, the police separately nabbed three suspects for a similar scam, and since March police say they have received more than 50 reports of scammers impersonating overseas officials, tricking their victims into sending more than S$4 million in total.

The scams usually involve callers impersonating staff from courier companies like DHL and informing victims that parcels containing fake passports or weapons had been shipped in their name. The calls would then be transferred to another person claiming to be a customs or police officer who would tell victims to provide personal information including identification number, address, passport number and bank account details.

Impersonation scams and Internet love scams accounted for the top 10 largest single cheating cases in the first four months of the year, with an impersonation scam claiming the highest amount lost by a victim in a single case this year - S$2.3 million.

- CNA/mz


- wong chee tat :)