He emptied savings to buy $52k worth of gold bars, and handed them to a stranger

Straits Times

19-07-2025

In a new variant of government official impersonation scams, victims have been asked to hand over physical cash or gold bars
At least 80 cases of government official impersonation scams were reported in June 2025 alone, according to police figures.
The 65-year-old withdrew all the money from his bank account on the evening of June 19. He went to two pawnshops and bought $52,700 worth of gold bars.
Then, as instructed, he made his way to Pasir Ris MRT station and handed the gold over to a woman he had never met before.
She took the package and walked away without a word, says Mr Sng, who declined to give his full name.
When he returned home and told his wife what had happened, her reaction stunned him. 'That's a scam,' she said immediately.
Mr Sng, a technician who retired about two weeks later in July, thought he was helping Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) officers with a criminal investigation.
The scam began that June 19 afternoon. Mr Sng was at work when his phone rang. Speaking in English, the caller claimed to be from financial services firm UnionPay and said that Mr Sng had recently signed up for a new insurance plan.
He was confused. He hadn't signed up for anything, he says, 'so I told him it must be a mistake'.
The 'UnionPay staff' agreed to cancel the plan but added that Mr Sng's personal information might have been misused. Sounding concerned, the caller offered to refer Mr Sng to someone from MAS to help investigate the issue.
That was when things took a turn.
Over the three-hour phone call, two 'MAS officers' told Mr Sng that his personal particulars had been used to buy the insurance plan. These suspicious transactions, they said, could be tied to a money laundering operation.
'The officers explained (the situation to me) in a very calm, convincing way,' Mr Sng recalls.
They gave him clear instructions to clear his name: Withdraw all the money from his bank account, convert it into gold bars, and hand them over for 'safekeeping'.
Mr Sng complied. He had fallen prey to a new variant of government official impersonation scams.
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Setting the trap
At least 80 cases of government official impersonation scams were reported in June 2025 alone, according to the Singapore Police Force (SPF). Victims lost more than $6.7 million.
In earlier versions of the scam, victims were asked to transfer money into 'safety bank accounts' for investigation purposes.
But the scam has evolved.
In the new variant, scammers would also impersonate service providers like insurance agents, and arrange for the physical collection of cash or gold bars from victims.
'(These) scammers prey on our trust and tendency to comply with authority figures,' says Mr Jeffery Chin, deputy director of SPF's Scam Public Education Office. 'They undermine our ability to process the situation by evoking fear and a sense of urgency to resolve it.'
In some cases, scammers trick victims into lowering their guard by 'presenting themselves as being sincere in wanting to help us resolve the situation', Mr Chin says.
To appear even more credible, scammers may cite personal information they've obtained, such as full names or NRIC numbers. 'Do not automatically trust someone just because they have your personal information,' cautions Police Superintendent Matthew Choo, assistant director of the Scam Public Education Office, SPF.
He advises the public to never hand over money or valuables to strangers, or leave them at a physical location for someone else to collect.
'I was in a daze,' says Mr Sng, thinking back to the moment he realised it was a scam. 'Why was I so gullible to believe (the scammers' story) about an MAS investigation? There was no greed involved, I (just) wanted to help.'
He made a police report that night, and 'fortunately I did', Mr Sng says.
The woman he had handed the gold bars to was caught at the Causeway the next day, just as she was attempting to leave Singapore.
About a week later, Mr Sng was called in by the police to identify her. In a rare outcome for scam cases, his loss was recovered in full.