Manager stops housewife from falling victim to ‘Interpol mission’ scam
Believing she was on a secret mission for Interpol, the housewife tried to withdraw more than $60,000 from her bank account.
But Ms Sally Tay, 50, an assistant service manager at DBS Bank, sensed the woman was a victim of a scam and stopped her from withdrawing the money.
Yesterday, Ms Tay was among a group of nine who received the public spiritedness award at Bedok Police Division.
Eight of them had stopped people from being scammed.
Recalling the Oct 7 incident, Ms Tay said the housewife, who was in her 50s, had walked into the DBS branch in Bedok with a man and she became suspicious when he answered questions on her behalf.
"It was very suspicious that he was answering questions related to her account and the two of them didn't seem related," Ms Tay told the media yesterday.
"So I took her separately to a room and told security to keep an eye on the man."
There, the woman told Ms Tay she was on a secret "mission" for Interpol and that the man was a police officer.
The mission, said the housewife, was to give all her savings to these men to hold on to and to let them use her account for other transactions.
The police were called and the man was taken away for further investigation.
Another award recipient, Mr Ismail Rahman, 59, a SingPost assistant branch manager, stopped a student from falling for a cyber extortion scam.
On July 3, the student had approached Mr Ismail claiming he wanted to transfer money to his father in India.
But Mr Ismail noticed that in the remittance forms, the student had filled in the name of a Filipino man.
"I later found out he wanted to transfer about $400 because he had been threatened that an illicit picture of him would be sent to his parents," said Mr Ismail.
"I refused to help him transfer the money and instead gave him $10 to take a taxi to the nearest police post."
At the presentation ceremony yesterday, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Police Julius Lim, commander of Bedok Police Division, praised the recipients for looking out for others.
He added: "We hope their exemplary conduct will inspire others to step forward and serve their communities for a safer tomorrow."
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