Love hurts deep, and love scams cut even deeper — $12 million went up in smoke last year, with the number of cases doubling since 2014.
According to the Singapore Police Force, the female gender formed the crux of internet love scam victims last year, with 80 percent of the of people conned being women aged between 30 and 60 years old. TODAY reports that most of the con artists would claim to be from the United Kingdom (English paramours, ooh la la), forming relationships with the victims online before tricking them out of their money.
The gullible male gender however fell for scams that involved the tantalising promise of coitus — they mainly fell for credit-for-sex scams that wrecked havoc across Singapore last year. 1,203 of such cases were recorded last year, which was a massive 1,723 percent increase from the 66 instances in 2014.
The police also noted that the bulk of online commercial crimes — love scams included — originated from overseas. As such, the Singapore Police Force will be working closely with foreign law enforcement agencies to take down the syndicates operating in their respective countries.
