SINGAPORE – Police have arrested a 23-year-old man who allegedly stole $36,000 from the bank account of a 32-year-old woman in a DHL parcel scam.
This arrest follows that of three men on July 14 for a similar scam.
The police said they received a report on July 4 from the 32-year-old woman, who said that an unknown person claiming to work for DHL had called to tell her that her parcel had been detained by Chinese Customs for containing illegal goods.
She said the call was then transferred to another person whose number was reflected in the caller ID as “999”. This man claimed to be from the police and the woman was asked to provide her Internet banking credentials, including the One-Time Password from her Internet banking dongle.
The woman later discovered that $36,000 was transferred from her bank account to an unknown account.
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The police established the identity of the 23-year-old suspect after extensive investigations and arrested the man on Monday (July 18), they said in a statement on Tuesday.
The man is believed to be involved in at least five other similar cases, involving losses totalling about $90,000, police said.
He will be charged in court on Wednesday. If found guilty, he can be jailed up to 5 years, fined, or both.
Many reports of such scams have said that scammers spoked with a mainland-Chinese accent. The man arrested yesterday and the three men arrested on Thursday, however, are believed to be Malaysians.
sinsh@sph.com.sg
