Romance scam in Singapore costs woman $120K in crypto

A Singapore woman has been scammed out of up to $120,000 by a romance crypto scammer. According to authorities, the woman was convinced by the scammer to transfer her life savings into their cryptocurrency wallet under the false promises of starting a life together.

Even though she had not met or identified the person at the other end of the line, the Singapore woman was ready to begin a new life with her lover abroad. She had withdrawn her two children from school and packed up her belongings, ready to make the trip to meet this ‘lover.’ However, a day before she was scheduled to travel, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) Lee Hua Sheng from the Anti-Scam Command’s (ASC) Crypto Tracing Team (CTT) suspected that she might have been a victim of a scam, asking her to confirm at their office.

Singapore single mother loses $120K to romance crypto scammer

According to the ASC, the bank had alerted them about the suspicious withdrawals, which prompted ASP Lee to contact the woman. Upon being contacted, the woman claimed that her ‘lover’ had been ignoring her messages. Recounting the incident, the woman claimed that she met the individual as they had only been communicating through WhatsApp messages and voice calls for the past year, but she had never seen his face.

ASP Lee, who spent more than three hours speaking to the Singapore woman, mentioned that she did not realize that she had avoided a worse fate. “If she had gone ahead and flown to a foreign country, she would have been stranded with her two young children, with no money,” he said. He then contacted the woman’s family and urged them to show her support. “She’s in a better state now, trying to recover from this episode and move on with her life,” he added.

ASP Lee claimed that he carried out a blockchain analysis and traced the funds. He noted that after the funds left her wallet, it was laundered through a series of scams linked to addresses. “Presenting the findings to her was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. The moment the harsh truth hit her, the scammer’s silence and avoidance suddenly made sense (to her), and she burst into tears,” he said.

CCT vows to put in more effort to stop scammers

The CCT is only eight months old, having gotten the approval to begin operations in March as the government sought to address the rising threat of scam proceeds moving into digital assets like Bitcoin. Singapore lost about $1.1 billion to scammers in 2024, with almost a quarter of the entire figure involving digital assets. The body claimed that one victim lost as much as $125 million in digital assets in a scam that was enabled by malware.

ASP Desmond Chia, the officer-in-charge of the CTT, noted that the team was formed because of the rise in crypto adoption. “Globally, people are more attuned to cryptocurrency, and it’s a trend which scammers have also noticed,” he said. He added that digital assets have provided an efficient way for scammers to launder funds without the need to go through banks. In the first half of 2025, more than $81.6 million in cryptocurrencies has been lost to scams, with Bitcoin and Ethereum topping the stats.

ASP Lee claimed that criminals are now exploiting victims’ lack of knowledge about cryptocurrencies. He mentioned that residents of Singapore have witnessed several cases where some people claim to want to help them invest in digital assets or guide them to invest in the assets, only to disappear after racking up funds from numerous participants. He also claimed that officers in the CCT are trained and charged to stop crypto scams in real-time, tracing wallet movement, and freezing wallets to effect recovery.