{"id":52391,"date":"2026-05-14T23:19:42","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:19:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52391"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:19:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T15:19:42","slug":"man-loses-s4-9-million-in-strait-of-hormuz-funding-assistance-scam-involving-impersonation-of-pm-wong-cabinet-secretary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=52391","title":{"rendered":"Man loses S$4.9 million in Strait of Hormuz funding assistance scam involving impersonation of PM Wong, Cabinet secretary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>After the meeting, the victim was contacted via WhatsApp, and he transferred at least S$4.9 million through a series of transactions to a corporate bank account supplied by the scammers.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The victim, after feeling that something was amiss, later contacted the Secretary to the Cabinet on Thursday, at which point he realised that he had been scammed.<\/p>\n<p>In relation to earlier cases using the same modus operandi, three individuals were arrested and charged on May 9 for their suspected involvement in SIM card offences, police added.<\/p>\n<p>In a Facebook post on Thursday, Mr Wong said: &#8220;I have been alerted that some people have received fake messages from someone impersonating the Cabinet Secretary and arranging meetings on my behalf.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;These messages are scams. Please exercise caution if you receive unsolicited messages of this nature.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you are unsure whether a message is legitimate, verify it through official channels before responding or sharing any personal information,&#8221; added Mr Wong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script async=\"1\" defer=\"1\" crossorigin=\"anonymous\" src=\"https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/sdk.js#xfbml=1&amp;version=v25.0\"><\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.channelnewsasia.com\/singapore\/strait-hormuz-funding-assistance-government-impersonation-scam-deepfake-ai-cabinet-secretary-lawrence-wong-6121626\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After the meeting, the victim was contacted via WhatsApp, and he transferred at least S$4.9 million through a series of transactions to a corporate bank&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52392,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dam.mediacorp.sg\/image\/upload\/s--SjtyApJr--\/c_fill,g_auto,h_676,w_1200\/fl_relative,g_south_east,l_mediacorp:cna:watermark:2024-04:reuters_1,w_0.1\/f_auto,q_auto\/v1\/one-cms\/core\/2026-05-07T213142Z_1_LYNXMPEM461NU_RTROPTP_3_IRAN-CRISIS-OIL-SUPPLY.JPG?itok=fxZIa_qA","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[485,5179,9016,18955,10713,2393,1191,140,787,22692,2455,7504,7734,1209],"class_list":["post-52391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-news-sg-global","tag-assistance","tag-cabinet","tag-funding","tag-hormuz","tag-impersonation","tag-involving","tag-loses","tag-man","tag-million","tag-s4-9","tag-scam","tag-secretary","tag-strait","tag-wong","wpcat-2-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52391\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52392"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}