SINGAPORE – Almost a quarter of the $1.1 billion lost to scams in 2024 involved cryptocurrency, with one victim losing $125 million in cryptocurrency funds in a malware-enabled scam.
Police said the man clicked on a fake interview meeting link and was asked by scammers to run a script on his laptop, which turned out to be a malicious code that targeted his cryptocurrency wallet.
He only knew he was scammed after discovering cryptocurrency transactions that he had not authorised.
Police said cryptocurrency losses accounted for about 24.3 per cent of total scam losses, a surge from the 6.8 per cent recorded the previous year.
In releasing the annual scam statistics on Feb 25, police said victims in four cases lost a total of $237.9 million in 2024.
Three of the cases involved cryptocurrency losses.
One of the victims lost $33.8 million after falling for a phishing scam. The loss accounted for more than half the $59.4 million scammers stole in 8,552 phishing scam cases in 2024.
Police said the victim had chanced upon an advertisement offering lucrative rewards, while browsing on a legitimate cryptocurrency wallet application.
The ad turned out to be a phishing scam, which redirected users to a third-party site resembling a legitimate company.
Police said the victim scanned a QR code in the site and keyed in cryptocurrency wallet login credentials.
Another victim who suffered cryptocurrency losses fell for a social media impersonation ruse.
The victim made cryptocurrency transfers, while under the impression that he was communicating with a company director he thought he knew on Telegram. He lost more than $21 million.
His loss accounted for the bulk of the $26.4 million scammers took in 2024 in various social media impersonation ruses across 728 cases.
- Nadine Chua is a crime and court journalist at The Straits Times.
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