From The Diplomat, November 6:
The move is the government’s latest attempt to combat a spike in financial fraud that has cost Singaporeans around $2.8 billion since 2020.
Singapore this week passed a law allowing for the caning of those involved in scamming, its latest attempt to combat a runaway surge in online fraud of all kinds.
Under the measure, which was passed by Parliament on Tuesday, scammers and members or recruiters of scam syndicates will face mandatory caning of at least six strokes, the Straits Times reported. Depending on the severity of the offense, the punishment can be increased up to the legal limit of 24 strokes. Scam mules who enable scammers will face discretionary caning of up to 12 strokes, the Times added.
Singapore’s decision to add scamming to the list of crimes that carry a punishment of mandatory caning – these include rape, drug trafficking, robbery, and arms trafficking – is the latest attempt to address the rise in financial fraud that is costing Singaporeans hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Sim Ann, senior minister of state for home affairs, told Parliament that scams are “by far the most prevalent crime type in Singapore today,” making up around 60 percent of all reported crimes. She added that between 2020 and the first half of 2025, there were about 190,000 cases of scams reported, with losses amounting to about S$3.7 billion ($2.8 billion). She described them as “staggering numbers.”
In the first half of 2025 alone, Singapore reported 19,665 cases of scams, losses from which amounted to S$456.4 million ($353 million). The Straits Times cited additional police figures showing that an additional S$187.1 million ($143 million) was lost to scams between July and September.
According to the Singaporean police, these scams include online shopping scams, “pig butchering” romance schemes, and impersonation scams, in which criminals pose online as reputable entities, including senior government officials, in order to lure in potential victims.
Singapore’s government has implemented a series of measures to combat the surge in scams. In September, the country’s Ministry of Home Affairs ordered U.S. tech giant Meta to put in place security measures to curb a spate of Facebook impersonation scams. The government has also passed legislation allowing police to take control of the bank accounts of individuals whom they suspect to be scam targets and limit the transactions they can authorize.
The explosion of scamming in Singapore is directly connected with the spread of online scamming operations throughout Southeast Asia, particularly in loosely regulated parts of Cambodia, Laos, and Myanmar. In addition to targeting victims across the region and the globe, these operations rely on an indentured workforce who, in most cases, are confined to fortified compounds and forced to run scams on pain of mistreatment, torture, and worse.
The Singapore Parliament’s caning amendment came shortly after police in the city-state seized over S$150 million ($115.6 million) in assets tied to the Prince Holding Group, a Cambodia-based conglomerate accused of running a network of online scamming centers....
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