The police said on Tuesday (July 19) that a fourth suspect of the DHL parcel scam has been arrested on Monday.
A 32-year-old woman had earlier reported the police that she had a phone call from a person who pretended to be a staff from DHL. The caller said that she had a parcel contained illegal goods and the parcel was being detained by the Chinese Customs.
The caller then transferred the call to another person whose numbers reflected in the woman’s caller ID as ‘999’. Another person on the line identified himself as a police officer. He asked the victim to provide her internet banking data, including the One-Time-Password (OTP) from her internet banking dongle.
The victim later discovered that her internet banking account was being hacked and as much as $36,000 were transferred onto another unknown bank account.
The officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) established the identity of a 23-year-old suspect through their investigations and arrested him.
According to the preliminary investigation, the suspect is believed to be involved in at least five other similar cases. The victims were believed to have lost about $90,000 through the scams.
The suspect will be put on a trial on Wednesday for allegedly receiving stolen property dishonestly.
Last week, three men were arrested by the police for a DHL parcel scam committed upon a 65-year-old woman and charged in court on last Saturday.
The Singapore Police Force has been posting on its Facebook page to remind the public about the unknown missed calls, starting with the numbers ‘999X XXXX’, on mobile phones.
Members of public are asked to ignore such calls from unknown origins, where Caller ID spoofing technology may be used to mask the actual phone number and display a different number.
They may call the Police hotline at 1800-255 0000 or submit information online at www.police.gov.sg/iwitness should they have any related information, and dial ‘999’ only if urgent Police assistance is required.
