SINGAPORE: Malaysian nurse Pan Han Ni, 34, met a man on an online dating app, and in just a week, he scammed her of S$77,000 (RM254,000).
She said the man continually pressured her to put her money into an investment platform in March, which she did and now regrets it.
More foreigners are falling victim to scams in Singapore, with the amount of money lost more than doubling from S$40.4 million (RM140 million) in 2020 to S$88 million (RM290 million) in 2021, police figures revealed.
The number of cases involving foreign victims also increased from 3,431 in 2020 to 5,210 in 2021.
This comes amid an overall spike in scam cases in Singapore, with victims losing at least $633.3 million in 2021, compared with $268.4 the previous year.
Police told The Sunday Times that the top three scams that affected foreigners in 2021 were phishing scams, job scams and e-commerce scams.
Said Pan: “He made me feel very guilty for not trusting him. He also said I was being selfish, as the extra income (from the investment) could benefit my family and friends.”
Stressed, she gave in to his requests, and, over a few days, deposited all her savings worth about S$37,000 into the fake platform.
Even then, the scammer told Pan to borrow money from her friends, so they, too, could reap the profits of the investment.
She borrowed about S$40,000 from friends to invest and realised it was all a hoax when she asked…
