{"id":71347,"date":"2026-07-24T18:00:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T10:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=71347"},"modified":"2026-07-24T18:00:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T10:00:04","slug":"1m-lost-in-2-weeks-woman-scammed-by-police-officer-who-used-mps-image-as-profile-picture-singapore-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/?p=71347","title":{"rendered":"$1m lost in 2 weeks: Woman scammed by &#8216;police officer&#8217; who used MP&#8217;s image as profile picture, Singapore News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>A woman lost more than $1 million in just two weeks after falling prey to a scammer who impersonated a police officer and used an MP&#8217;s photo<strong> <\/strong>as the WhatsApp profile picture.<\/p>\n<p>In a Facebook post on Thursday (July 23), Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC MP Cai Yinzhou recounted how a resident approached him during a Meet-the-People Session for help after her bank account was frozen.<\/p>\n<p>Cai said that since March, the woman had been sending a daily selfie of herself at home to a scammer posing as a police officer who had contacted her via WhatsApp.<\/p>\n<p>The scammer allegedly claimed that there were outstanding arrest warrants against her and instructed her not to tell anyone about the matter.<\/p>\n<p>To make the ruse more convincing, the scammer also used the WhatsApp profile photo of an MP.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Over two weeks in April, 32 transactions were made from her account,&#8221; said Cai, adding that the victim was also instructed to hand over her jewellery and other valuables, which she personally delivered to the scammer.<\/p>\n<p>Cai said he and members of his team accompanied the resident to a police station to verify the claims made by the purported officer. It was only then that she realised she had been communicating with scammers.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Scams can happen to anyone. Please look out for one another, especially our seniors,&#8221; said Cai.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If something feels off, verify before you act. And never let anyone isolate you from the people you trust.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For more information on scams, the public may call the ScamShield Helpline at 1799 or visit ScamShield&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scamshield.gov.sg\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>[[nid:741022]]<\/p>\n<p>xingying.koh@asiaone.com<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<center><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.asiaone.com\/singapore\/woman-loses-1m-2-weeks-scammer-police-mps-whatsapp\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article At Source <\/a><br \/>\n<center\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A woman lost more than $1 million in just two weeks after falling prey to a scammer who impersonated a police officer and used an&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":71348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-71347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71347","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=71347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/71348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=71347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=71347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=71347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}