Agencies sound alarm over domestic helpers falling prey to illegal money mule activities

CNA2024-12-27

SINGAPORE: Domestic helper “Gina” met someone on a dating app in 2018. They got into a virtual relationship, but instead of a fairytale ending, she found herself unwittingly pulled into a money mule ...

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And then after that he told me: ‘You see, I have a business in the country you live right now and I need people to help me.’” \nGina, who was then 31 years old and had been working here for about six years, fell for his ruse.\nShe asked him what help he needed, and was asked to withdraw money that had been deposited into her bank account and transfer it into another.\nWhen she later tried to withdraw her salary, the bank told her that her account had been frozen. She was then contacted by the police and her employer was informed.\nUnbeknownst to her, she had ended up transferring illegal proceeds totalling about S$30,000 (US$22,000).\nHer employer was angry with her and terminated her contract. Gina was to be deported, but a case worker at the Centre for Domestic Employees (CDE) shelter helped to appeal this decision, while providing her with counselling and emotional support.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROBLEM OF SCAMS\nMoney mules are typically individuals who hand over control of their payment accounts to criminals, or who use their accounts to receive or transfer monies under the instruction of criminals, the Singapore Police Force told CNA.\nScam syndicates usually cultivate a network of money mules to facilitate their crimes or to launder criminal proceeds, it added.\nThe money mules’ bank accounts form a web of multiple accounts, through which scammed monies can be split into different denominations and transferred.\n“This process is repeated many times over, so that the monies go through multiple layers of bank accounts, being transferred out of Singapore into the hands of the syndicate,” said a police spokesperson.\n“This makes it more difficult for authorities to follow the money trail and get to the perpetrators.”\nThe police added that they typically uncover money mule activities through information provided by banks, collaboration with banks to identify transactions and bank accounts exhibiting potential money mule behaviour, as well as information sharing and joint investigations with foreign counterparts.\nClose to S$400 million was lost to criminals in the first half of this year.\nIn a media statement on Thursday (Dec 26), the police said they arrested 189 suspected scammers and money mules in a two-week islandwide operation. \nThe suspects are believed to be involved in more than 1,000 cases, including investment scams, e-commerce scams and job scams, where victims reportedly lost over $6.65 million.\nThe suspects are being investigated for the alleged offences of cheating, money laundering or providing payment services without a licence, which carry penalties of both jail terms and fines.\n\n\n\n\nGROWING CONCERN OVER MAIDS FALLING PREY\nThe CDE, which is run by the National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), said that while it does not have data, based on feedback from volunteers who engage domestic workers, there is a growing concern over them falling prey to criminal activities.\n“We are stepping up efforts and trying to reach out (to them) to continue to educate (them),\" said Mr Michael Lim, director of the migrant workers segment which oversees CDE.\n“We also work with the authorities in terms of equipping the domestic workers with anti-scam awareness, getting some insights on some of these new trends that may be happening beyond classes that we do,” he added.\nHowever, he said more can be done, including restricting helpers’ access to “more exploitative kinds of retail services” like zero-payment installment plans that could entrap them into a debt cycle and make them vulnerable to some illegal activities. \nThe Humanitarian Organization for Migration Economics (HOME), which advocates for migrant workers’ rights, said it has seen more cases of helpers being investigated for money mule activities over the past two years. \n“HOME has encountered MDWs (migrant domestic workers) who are victims of money mule scams be given warning letters, or face charges in court for their activities. As a result, they are debarred from continuing to seek employment here,” said Ms Jaya Anil Kumar, senior manager for research and advocacy.\n“HOME believes that victims of deceptive practices should not be subject to prosecution or punishment. Instead, the perpetrators of such exploitative schemes should be taken to task so that low-wage migrant workers are not targeted and exploited.\nHOME offers shelter and casework support for victims, including pro-bono legal services for those who end up with criminal charges. \n\n\n\n\nWHAT IS BEING DONE TO HELP MAIDS?\nGiven the severity of such illegal activities, some employment agencies are taking extra precautions to educate maids. We Are Caring, for instance, screens all helpers when they are deployed to Singapore, and holds weekly workshops to train them in detecting criminal activity.\nThe staff also assist them in setting up ScamShield, and facial recognition for their SingPass accounts to prevent misuse by third parties.\n\"Their level of digital literacy is sometimes not very high, and they are shy to ask. So they are very happy to have an open conversation and also to do this together with other helpers,” said the agency’s managing director David Bensadon. \n“And because we tell them how to prevent scams, they feel stronger. And this is the end point - we want them to be able to identify early any risks of scam and to have the right behaviour.\"\nThere are also other avenues of support for domestic helpers. Non-governmental organisation Aidha for example, runs free courses on financial literacy.\nBanks also said they are doing their part. \nDBS said that while anyone might become a money mule, certain groups, such as students, younger individuals, and migrant domestic workers, may be more vulnerable due to various factors, such as searching for quick financial gains or seemingly lucrative employment opportunities.  \n  \nThe bank said it proactively combats money mule activity through a dedicated “anti-mule team” set up in September last year that works closely with the police. \nThe team has conducted joint operations with the police, which resulted in the seizure of over S$8.5 million in illicit funds from mule accounts, a spokesperson said.\nThe bank added that since 2016, it has conducted digital and financial literacy workshops for over 300,000 migrant workers. \nOCBC’s head of anti-fraud under the group financial crime compliance Beaver Chua said that scams are becoming more sophisticated and hard to detect. \nHe added that the bank has a close working relationship with the police and a team stationed onsite at the Police Anti-Scam Centre, which allows it to identify and freeze or block fraudulent transactions and compromised accounts more quickly. \n“When a scam is detected or reported, time is of the essence to stop fraudulent funds flows and trace them to afford a higher chance of recovering the scammed funds,” he said.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.30.0","shortVersion":"4.30.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2494731868"}