Teng was among the first to urge the bank to launch a dedicated anti-scam unit. — LIM YAOHUI/The Straits Times/ANN
SINGAPORE: Alan Teng is no stranger to crimes, having previously served as a police criminal investigator for 13 years.
But few cases sicken him quite like scams.
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Now the head of DBS Bank’s anti-scam team, Teng, 49, recalled an early case when the team was formed in 2019. A woman in her 50s had transferred her entire savings of S$170,000 (RM535,058) to scammers who had posed as Chinese officials.
Her bank account looked suspicious as the oddly large transaction was linked to a foreign bank account that had been flagged for money laundering, said Teng.
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After an hour-long phone call with the woman, Teng finally convinced her that she was being scammed. During the call, the woman had spoken on speakerphone at the urging of the scammers who manipulated her as they eavesdropped on the call.
Teng explained to her the typical tactics used by such scammers to trick victims – that they would rush her to make a large transaction and urge her to lie to the authorities.
The woman realised she had been conned as these were the precise instructions given by the fraudsters.
Teng said the bank managed to freeze her account before the money was transferred to the scammers.
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Among the first to urge the bank to launch a dedicated anti-scam unit, Teng said he remembered this incident clearly as it proved it was feasible to stop scams before money was lost.
The team’s mission is to detect and prevent scams by analysing transactions and working with the police to flag suspicious accounts.
Last year, the team helped to recover S$35mil (RM110.15mil) lost to scams by freezing 5,300 bank accounts linked to scams.
The police previously said that this amount is roughly a third of the S$103mil (RM324.18mil) of scam money recovered in 2021.
Teng said: “All crimes are bad, but especially so when a person takes advantage of the vulnerable and robs them of all they have.”
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DBS is the only bank with an employee – Yaznisham Yazid, 29 – at the police Anti-Scam Centre (ASC) to work with officers to foil scams faster.
He will be joined by more DBS officers who will be permanently deployed at the centre around June.
It is understood that other banks will follow suit later this year.
Yaznisham recalled preventing a victim from losing S$220,000 (RM692,428) to scammers by freezing her account the moment it was flagged by the police last year.
Officers then visited her home for investigations – all within one afternoon.
Yaznisham said: “It was done in half a day. Previously, this would have taken longer. Scams happen really fast and there is no time to waste...
“With scams rising, having more people here at the ASC would help us ensure that we stay on top of the timely freezing of any accounts and recovery of funds.” – The Straits Times (Singapore)/Asia News Network
