Over 9 in 10 pieces of criminal cybercontent taken down were scams: Online Criminal Harms Act Office

Even though the Government can instruct the takedown of online activities linked to a variety of offences in Singapore, scams are the most common crime requiring removal from cyberspace.

More than nine in 10 pieces of criminal cybercontent taken down under the Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA) were scam websites, advertisements, listings and accounts, said the director of the Online Criminal Harms Act Office, Assistant Commissioner Marc E, on Feb 19.

He was speaking to the media for the first time since OCHA took effect on Feb 1, 2024.

OCHA, which was passed by Parliament in July 2023, allows the Government to issue directions and orders to social media and e-commerce platforms to restrict and limit the exposure of Singapore users to criminal activities.

Assistant Commissioner E said: “The legal threshold to issue OCHA directions is lower for scams and similar malicious cyberactivities compared with other online criminal harms.

“If there is suspicion or reason to believe that any online activity is being carried out in preparation for committing a scam, directions to take down suspicious accounts or content related to such preparation may be issued.”

Examples of specified offences include those relating to terrorism and internal security, racial and religious harmony, drugs, violence and scams.

According to the police’s annual scam figures released on Feb 25, over $913 million was lost to scams in 2025, a dip from the $1.1 billion lost in 2024.

The number of scam cases reported also dropped from 51,501 cases in 2024 to 37,308 cases in 2025.

Assistant Commissioner E said scam cases involving designated online service providers under OCHA declined 36.5 per cent from 31,184 in 2024 to 19,787 in 2025.

These designated online service providers are Meta, Carousell, Telegram, WeChat and TikTok.

Apart from issuing directions for online service providers to take down criminal content, Assistant Commissioner E said the OCHA office also gets platforms to address specific risks to prevent crime before it happens.

A recent example involves an implementation directive sent to Meta to target scammers on Facebook, which it must comply with or risk a fine of up to $1 million.

It requires Meta, the parent company of Facebook, to implement enhanced facial recognition measures and prioritise the review of end-user reports from Singapore.

This is to reduce scam advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages that impersonate two sets of people.

The first set includes government office-holders in Singapore who were not covered in the first directive that was issued on Sept 24, 2025.

The first directive had required Meta to target scam advertisements, accounts, profiles and business pages impersonating those of key government office-holders on Facebook by Sept 30, 2025.

The second set of people in the second directive covers those in Singapore whom the police have assessed to be at high risk of being impersonated, including those who have filed police reports. 

Meta was to have implemented the measures for this set by Feb 28.

Assistant Commissioner E said the police are assessing Meta’s compliance with the implementation directives and will provide an update when ready.

MBS staycation scam

The OCHA office also works with online services like Carousell and Google to tackle online cyberactivities.

Speaking to the media on Feb 19, Carousell’s director of trust and customer experience, Mr Gijs Verheijke, said it worked with the OCHA office to tackle a series of scam listings posted on Carousell in 2025 that lured victims with fake staycations at Marina Bay Sands Singapore (MBS).

Scammers had promoted MBS staycations on Carousell with too-good-to-be-true prices of up to 40 per cent off.

They would then convince potential buyers to exit Carousell and continue the deal on Telegram or WhatsApp, so Carousell would be unable to monitor the transactions.

After interested buyers paid for the fake staycation, the scammer became uncontactable.

Mr Verheijke said: “As Carousell was receiving user reports on such scams, the police were receiving police reports from victims. We realised this scam was likely by a professional scam ring run from overseas.

“The listings were quickly taken down, which is a good example of how OCHA allows the police and Carousell to work together.”

Separately, in November 2025, implementation directives were issued to Apple and Google to implement measures to prevent the spoofing of gov.sg sites and government agency names on their messaging platforms.

The police said OCHA has enabled them to issue directions to online service providers to disrupt large amounts of scam content and scam accounts hosted online.

OCHA’s directions to take down scam content online have greatly reduced Singapore users’ exposure to such harms, added the police.

They said: “Online service providers have acted on all directions issued, generally within a 24-hour timeframe. This represents a significant improvement in the speed of disrupting criminal activities prior to or during the earlier period of OCHA taking effect.”

Source: The Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.

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