The elderly victim had been deceived by scammers who claimed that her identity was being misused in China. - Photo: ST
SINGAPORE: An 18-year-old girl was arrested on Sunday (Jan 5) on suspicion of helping scammers who posed as Chinese officials to dupe an old woman of S$290,000.
The suspect is a student on a social visit pass and had fallen prey herself to the same Chinese official impersonation scam, said the police on Tuesday (Jan 7).
She is believed to have been manipulated into travelling to Singapore to help grifters under the false understanding that she was helping with official investigations, the police added.
They declined to say which country she is from.
The elderly victim had been deceived by scammers who claimed that her identity was being misused in China.
She lodged a police report on Jan 5 and the teen was caught within eight hours, said the police.
The suspect is under investigation for cheating, which carries jail time of up to 10 years and a fine.
Earlier iterations of the China official impersonation scam from 2023 to 2024 involved hoax abductions.
In January 2024, two men were nabbed for posing as Chinese police officers and cheating two Chinese nationals here of $445,000.
The two victims were also tricked into filming videos of themselves tied up like hostages for a bogus “scam education”.
The suspects then sent the footage to the victims’ parents back in China, demanding a ransom.
In April 2023, police foiled a similar plot aimed at the parents of a 19-year-old Chinese student here, who took a video recording of herself in torn clothing and with her hands tied up, as if she was being held hostage.
The scammers sent the video to her parents in China, along with a ransom demand.
A police report was filed here and the teen was found six hours later at Woodlands Checkpoint.
For more information on scams, members of the public can visit www.scamshield.gov.sg or call the ScamShield Helpline at 1799. - The Straits Times/ANN
