Woman, 79, sells her unit trust to transfer $260,000 to suspected mule account, bank calls police

A 79-year-old woman sold her unit trust investment with Standard Chartered Bank, amounting to more than $260,000, to transfer the money to a suspected mule bank account.

The transaction was detected by a bank relationship manager, who noticed the customer's unusual banking behaviour and outgoing transfers to the account.

Mr Tan Kah Boon, who is a senior relationship manager for priority clients at Standard Chartered Bank, promptly escalated the case to the bank's anti-fraud team, which, in turn, reached out to the Anti-Scam Centre of the Singapore Police Force for intervention.

On Dec 5, the Anti-Scam Centre worked with the bank to seize the money.

It all started in September when the woman received an unsolicited call from a scammer who impersonated a bank officer, alleging that her account had been frozen for investigation.

The scammer then transferred her to a second scammer impersonating a Singapore Police Force official, who instructed the woman to report her whereabouts four times daily and not to divulge details about the investigation.

In November, she was then instructed to sell her unit trust investments and transfer the money to a third-party bank account provided by the scammer, purportedly to assist in investigations.

After the Ant-Scam Centre was alerted, it immediately worked with the bank’s anti-fraud team to conduct fund flow tracing, which led to the identification and freezing of all the scammer-controlled accounts.

This prevented the loss of over $260,000.

Anti-Scam Centre officers followed up with the woman to alert her of the deceptive scheme.

"To protect its customers from fraud and scams, among other measures taken, Standard Chartered Bank’s anti-fraud team regularly conducts training for frontline teams to step up vigilance in fraud detection and prevention measures," said the police in a statement.

"The rigorous emphasis on anti-scam training and the close collaboration with the Anti-Scam Centre has led to the timely intervention."

Ms Koh Siok Meng, fraud risk management analyst at Standard Chartered Bank and Ms Irina Ng, Anti-Scam Centre senior investigation officer, discussing the case. Photo: Singapore Police Force