A 30-year-old Nigerian man and a 26-year-old Malaysian woman were arrested in a Melaka apartment in connection with online love scams on both sides of the Causeway, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) said on Friday (Apr 5).
Officers from Malaysia’s Commercial Crime Investigation Department (CCID) made the arrests on Mar 27 with the aid of information provided by SPF’s Commercial Affairs Department (CAD).
Several mobile phones, ATM cards and a laptop were seized during the operation. The pair are believed to have cheated victims of more than S$237,000 in at least 11 online love scam cases, SPF said in their statement.
Director of CAD Mr David Chew, said: “We are working very closely with our foreign counterparts to fight transnational criminals who perpetrate scams behind the veil of the internet.”
He also thanked Commissioner Pahlawan Mazlan and his officers from the Operations and Intelligence division of CCID for their “support and commitment”.
SPF said they had received several reports of a variant of internet love scams since September 2018.
In these cases, victims would meet the scammers online and get into online relationships with them. The scammers would tell their victims that they were sending gifts containing luxurious goods from abroad.
The victims would then receive calls from people claiming to be customs officers, who would demand payments of fines, claiming that the gifts were being detained at the checkpoints.
“Members of the public are advised to be careful when befriending strangers online. They should also be wary when asked to send money to bank accounts of people whom they do not know or who claim to be government officers,” SPF added.
Read more at https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/online-internet-love-scam-singapore-malaysia-arrest-11416430