SINGAPORE – There have been at least 10 reported cases here of scammers posing as senior executives of companies on WhatsApp, resulting in losses of at least $13.5 million, since January 2025.
The police reminded the public in an advisory on Feb 26 to remain vigilant against such schemes.
In this ruse, scammers create WhatsApp accounts with the name and publicly available photos of the victims’ chief executives or supervisors. They would then contact the victims through the messaging app while posing as their bosses, said the police.
Some of the victims were instructed to participate in video calls via the Zoom video-conferencing platform, where scammers would digitally alter their appearance to impersonate senior executives, investors, or officials from the Monetary Authority of Singapore.
The victims would be instructed to work on what the scammers called “confidential projects” and made to sign “non-disclosure agreements” to prevent them from discussing the “projects” with their colleagues.
They would be asked to provide confidential company information such as bank account balances, and transfer company funds for the “projects”.
They would realise that they had been scammed only after checking with their actual chief executive officers or supervisors on the “projects”.
