SINGAPORE, Oct 11 — More than 100 cases of official impersonation scams were reported in the republic for the month of September, with victims losing at least S$6.7 million (RM22 million) in total.

Scammer targets received phone calls from individuals posing as officers from major banks such as DBS, OCBC, UOB or Standard Chartered, according to the the police and Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) in a joint statement yesterday.

The scammers duped victims claiming presence of suspicious transactions or credit card issues, and requested them to verify the authenticity of the transactions.

Those who denied knowledge of the transactions, were transferred to another person impersonating a government official, often via messaging apps such as WhatsApp.

Scammers then make video calls while wearing fake police or MAS badges and using backdrops to appear legitimate, occasionally producing fake warrant cards or fake official documents.

Victims were accused of criminal activities such as money laundering and asked to transfer money to "safety accounts” for investigation purposes, only realising they had been scammed when the "officials” became unreachable or when they attempted to verify their cases with banks or the police.