SINGAPORE: Minister of State for Home Affairs Sun Xueling said on Friday ( Feb 28 ) that the Ministry of Home Affairs ( MHA ) is considering various proposals on how to best compensate scam victims.  ,
She was responding to a question from WP-Aljunied Member of Parliament Gerald Giam that was related to whether the government had thought about starting a fraud victim restitution fund that would be funded by the seized funds from new money laundering cases.
According to K Shanmugam, the minister of law and home affairs, assets that were handed over to the government as part of the S$ 3 billion ( US$ 2.2 billion ) money laundering case are currently being gradually liquidated and returned to the government’s hands on February 26.
A total of 54 components, 33 cars and 11 country club members were liquidated as of December 2024, and proceeds from the bankruptcy of non-cash assets may be paid into the government’s unified account, he had said in congress.  ,
Operating difficulties are raised by Ms. Sun’s statement on Friday regarding the creation of a unified account to help patients recover the money they lost.  ,
For instance, the government cannot discern that all the wealth recovered by the Anti-Scam Centre all come from schemes, she added.  ,
According to Ms. Sun, the syndicates that run these scams frequently operate another crime business ranges as well, including improper moneylending.  ,
There might be additional proceeds from crimes committed against another people, and there might also be additional victims who may feel also about those proceeds, she said.  ,
Due to the intermixing of funds, Ms. Sun said it’s also challenging to determine whether a penny recovered is the same buck lost by a victim.  ,
It’s frequently really difficult to tell who the target that the dollar was duped from, especially in cases where bitcoin is involved, she noted.  ,
With a unified compensation finance, it would be difficult to identify which victim has a right to the income that was recovered, according to the minister of state.  ,
The number recovered from scams is only a small portion of the sum lost as a result, Ms. Sun emphasized.  ,
At least S$ 1.1 billion ( US$ 822 million ) was lost to scams in 2024, and the Singapore Police Force managed to recover more than S$ 182 million of scam losses in 2024, making the net loss about S$ 930 million.
” There are going to be much more applicants for the cash than there are actually money, in the finances that are recovered”, said Ms Sun.  ,
Even if patients can restore some of their money, it would be a “tiny proportion” of what they lost in the first place, she added.  ,