Strengthening Legislative Measures for Youths Involved in Scam-related Offences

Mr Christopher de Souza asked the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs whether the Government will consider introducing additional legislative amendments or measures with regard to sentencing provisions for youth involved in scam-related offences.

Mr Speaker: Order. Before I call on the Minister to reply to Question No 11, I wish to highlight to Members that the Parliamentary Question may be related to a case, Mohamed Erzan Taib Zohri v Public Prosecutor and other appeals , which may be pending before the Courts.

I have allowed the question to stand on today's Order Paper because I am satisfied that it does not require answers that venture into legal issues before the Courts nor impinge on the mutual respect and forbearance maintained between this House and the Judiciary.

I would like to, therefore, advise Members to exercise caution in making any statement or asking any supplementary questions discussing or reflecting the details of the case as it could have the potential to concern matters that are sub judice or may prejudice the legal proceedings and the interests of the parties to the matter.

Following Standing Order 21(1)(h), I will rule such statements and supplementary questions out of order. Minister.

The Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs (Mr K Shanmugam): Mr Speaker, Sir, my response to Mr Christopher de Souza will also address a related question on young offenders committing scams, related offences filed by Ms Cassandra Lee for today's Sitting, as well as by Dr Wan Rizal 1 for a subsequent Sitting. If Dr Wan Rizal is satisfied with the response, he may wish to withdraw his question.

Members of this House would be aware that scams are now the most prevalent crime type in Singapore. In the first half of 2026, the Police received, on average, about 90 reported scam cases every single day, which involved about $2 million lost every single day.

My Ministry is particularly concerned that many young people are getting involved in scams-related offences. In 2025, more than 1,000 young persons were investigated in connection with scam reports.

Each time we have such a case, it is understandable that we look at the age of the offender and feel sympathetic. But spare a thought also for the victims, including elderly victims.

In 2025, there were more than 5,000 elderly victims of scams. The majority were retired and unemployed. Losses from these cases amounted to around $200 million. So, think of senior citizens losing their life savings and not knowing how they can eke out a living for the rest of their lives.

Members would have come across these elderly couples, who bring their bank statements and show the withdrawals made by scammers – sometimes, a few hundred thousand dollars, or even more. They have worked hard, they have saved carefully. Then, one day, a scammer takes it all away. The couple will be in distress because they have lost their life savings – and stressed, because they have no money for their future expenses.

Who is responsible? The scammers. Who helped them? The person who gave up his or her bank account, including young persons who do it to earn a few hundred dollars.

Let me give you a couple of actual examples. In March 2024, the Police received a report from a 68-year-old victim who had been scammed. He had transferred more than $217,000 to a bank account belonging to a 16-year-old. This 16-year-old young person had allowed the use of his account for the purpose of getting some quick cash – $1,000.

In another scam case in February 2024, an 18-year-old gave up her Singpass account after being offered at least $1,000. The Singpass account was used to open three bank accounts, which were used to launder more than $217,000 from seven scam victims – two of these victims were above 65 years old; the oldest victim was 74 years old.

So, you can see the consequences that can flow from the actions of a money mule, regardless of how young or old the mule is. I had considered showing you the photos and names of some of these victims. But the victims were concerned. They did not want the stigma of being identified as a scam victim, naturally. So, being a scam victim carries more than just financial consequences.

Our task is to decide how best we can prevent these offences from being perpetrated.

I have previously said, in general, as a matter of criminal philosophy, penal philosophy, our approach for the penalties to be imposed for an offence has four aspects: one, deterrence; two, prevention; three, retribution; and four, rehabilitation of the offender. Which aspect is the predominant consideration would depend on the facts, though generally, we have placed weight on rehabilitation, primary; deterrence, very important; and prevention, very important.

In the context of scams, to me, the most important principle is, however, deterrence. There are two aspects to this: first, to deter the person from doing it again; and second, to deter everyone else from doing it. Then, fewer people will lose their life savings.

Young people do deserve sympathy in general. Over the years, we have changed our legislation to bring in rehabilitative justice, including through community-based sentences, probation and reformative training. Young people are generally dealt with within that framework.

In 2025, we further expanded the jurisdiction of the Youth Court from youths below 17 to youths aged below 18. The Youth Court mainly dispenses rehabilitative sentences.

Generally, young offenders who require more intensive and structured rehabilitation are sent by the Courts to the Reformative Training Centres (RTC). At RTC, they are engaged in various psychology-based correctional programmes, and these are complemented where necessary by education, skills training, family programmes and re-integration support.

We take rehabilitation very seriously. We accept young people should be given guidance, and we should try and rehabilitate them as much as possible, rather than immediately treat them as hardened criminals.

But for scam-related offences, the Government has made a deliberate policy judgement that deterrence and prevention must carry far greater weight. This is because rehabilitation of the individual offender has to be balanced against the need to deter others from facilitating scams and thereby prevent many more people from becoming victims.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) had therefore put before this House new legislation over the last three years to tighten the penalties for scams-related offences, including through the introduction of caning. When these laws were debated, Parliament deliberately made no distinction between young and not-so-young offenders. We then worked with the Sentencing Advisory Panel to develop sentencing guidelines. The Sentencing Advisory Panel includes members from the Judiciary – its then-Chairman when we developed these guidelines for scams was Justice of the Court of Appeal, Mr Tay Yong Kwang – and it includes other Judges as well as members from the Attorney-General's Chambers, the Public Defender's Office, the Bar and my Ministry.

The Sentencing Advisory Panel worked intensively on the sentencing guidelines for scam offences. The Guidelines recommend imprisonment or reformative training when sentencing scams-related offenders, including those below the age of 21, except those who are dealt with in the Youth Court. Of course, on the actual sentence to be imposed on any individual case, the Courts will retain the final discretion.

The total figure lost to scams reached a peak of $1.1 billion in 2024. After we put in place these measures progressively over the three years, scam losses have decreased slightly. But scammers have continued to adapt and attempt to overcome our measures. So, this is certainly not the time to go soft.

On 10 September 2026, last month, a three-judge quorum of the High Court decided, in Mohamed Erzan Taib Zohri v Public Prosecutor and other appeals , the three-Judge Court decided to allow several Magistrate's Appeals by youth offenders who were involved in scams-related offences. The Court sentenced them to probation and community sentences instead of more deterrent sentences.

One of the appeals, for example, relates to one Seyfqan. At the age of 18, he was offered $800 to open and give up a bank account. The account was then used to open a second bank account. A 66-year-old victim transferred almost $200,000 to this second account after being scammed. The High Court decided, for a number of reasons, that probation was appropriate for this person, Seyfqan. This was, among other things, because, and I quote, "the primary sentencing consideration for young offenders will generally, or presumptively, be rehabilitation".

This rationale by the High Court contradicts the approach set out in the Sentencing Advisory Guidelines. The guidelines say, and I quote, "Fines, probation and community sentences are generally not appropriate. Imprisonment or reformative training, whichever is more appropriate, should be considered given the need for deterrence and the public interest in suppressing scams."

It is understandable for the Court, which comprised two Court of Appeal Judges here, including the Chief Justice, looking at the individual young offenders in front of them, to feel sympathy for those individuals and be inclined to impose rehabilitative sentences on youth offenders. However, the Court did not have before it the policy perspectives that I have just laid out nor the data on the scale of the problem of scams and scammers, the huge amount of losses through scams and the full human cost of such scams.

But the Government has to consider the wider consequences. If we are lenient towards scammers and those who facilitate scams, many more Singaporeans will fall victim, including senior citizens who may lose their entire life savings. And if young offenders are being treated more leniently simply because of their age, you can be sure that scam syndicates will have every incentive to recruit more young people as mules.

We cannot and will not allow this to happen.

This was why Parliament took a tough approach in our recent rounds of amendments to the relevant legislation. We wanted this message to go out that every offender, young or old, will be very seriously dealt with. If a number of cases are dealt with in this way, seriously, many other would-be offenders would take reference. Word will get around and people, including young people, will be much more careful. That will make it harder for scammers to operate and help to reduce the number of victims and the losses they suffer.

The High Court said that legislation must be clear. We had proceeded on the basis that the legislation was clear. The guidelines were also clear. They are clear. I have quoted them. However, the Court has expressed a different view on the legislation.

We respect the Court's views, but we will give effect to the policy position I have outlined and we will table legislation in Parliament soon. It will be quite express and will make clear that the position in Erzan is not to be followed. We will reinforce through the law the approach of imposing deterrent sentences on all scammers and those who facilitate scams, including those who are young.

Young people may be attracted by the promise of quick money. They may be misled by purported job offers. They may be influenced by peers, or they may be approached through social media. Some may not fully appreciate that their actions can enable serious criminal activity. Criminal syndicates exploit precisely this combination of inexperience, financial temptation and digital exposure.

That is why education is another key strategy to prevent youth offending. To Dr Wan Rizal's question, the Police work with the Ministry of Education (MOE) to conduct crime prevention talks in schools and to disseminate anti-scam advisories through the Parents Gateway platform. In April 2026, we launched a youth-centric anti-scam campaign to warn young people against selling or providing access to their bank accounts, SIM cards and Singpass credentials.

We will also study Ms Cassandra Lee's suggestion, including whether structured scam-awareness and financial-literacy training would be appropriate and effective for youths who are issued with conditional warnings.

Mr Speaker: Dr Wan Rizal.

Dr Wan Rizal (Jalan Besar): Sir, I thank the Minister for sharing our approach towards scams in Singapore. I agree on the importance of deterrence. And I also agree on the importance of the strategy of going through education. I do believe that going to school is the right way, and getting parents informed is another.

But my worry is this – the youths are being tempted through other means. In this case, I believe it is social media as one of the options. Could we do more in cutting down this load of information coming to them? And at the same time, our education should also be a bit more open. We should probably push out this information to social media, where the youths have constant access to and are able to know what is really happening, because I do believe that we need more ways to get them engaged.

Mr K Shanmugam: Mr Speaker, Sir, many of the young people that we pick up and investigate know precisely what they were doing. They were offered an amount of money. They knew that they should not be doing it. But they were tempted by the $800 or $1,000 that they were offered. They thought it was a quick way of getting money.

So, I think in all of these questions, let us start with individual responsibility. Age is relevant but let us not understate the importance of holding individuals responsible when they knew what they were doing; and many of them know what they are doing.

We take age into account, youthfulness into account, so as not to treat them as hardened criminals and so as to give them an approach which would better rehabilitate them so that they would not repeat the mistake. But as I have explained at some length, why we need to take a different approach in the case of scams.

So, let us start with individual responsibility. The boys and girls who do this know what they are doing primarily.

What are we doing about it? I have talked about education. We have gone to the schools. We worked with MOE. We have gone to the institutes of higher learning (IHLs). We put out measures there. We also have major initiatives. Like last year, we did a major initiative, through the Internet, a challenge for young people to come and see what happens when scams take place and how they should stay away.

It is difficult to police the Internet in the way that Dr Wan Rizal may be suggesting, but I think what is certainly possible and what we are seeking to do, and we will continue to do, is to use both the online media channels as well as the physical media, as I said, personal visits to schools and IHLs and posters and other means, to bring across the importance of not being involved in scams.

But the necessary part of it will also have to be deterrence. I think people have to know, whether young or old, that they will face very stiff penalties if they do commit these offences.

Mr Speaker: Ms Cassandra Lee.

Ms Cassandra Lee (West Coast-Jurong West): I thank the Minister for his clarification and for taking my suggestion.

I have seen parents and their children at my Meet-the-People Sessions, where they come together and tell me that they have been deceived and manipulated into becoming money mules or becoming involved in scams. I recognise the fact that these may be limited, but there may be some cases where we have two sets of victims. We ask the Minister whether, in the tabling of the new Bill, we will consider what deterrence would be most effective for youths, including whether or not they have the ability to report themselves and receive lighter sentences if they come out and tell the Police what has been happening.

Mr K Shanmugam: Thank you, Sir. In working on these issues, as a matter of public policy, we have to design it to cover a broad range of circumstances but also allow for some discretion to be exercised in individual cases. For every one case that the Member might meet, where parents bring their young persons around and say that they were deceived, the Member will also see – and many Members of Parliament have seen and I have seen – several senior citizens who come and say they have lost their life savings.

This is why I said it is always a balance. And the key must be to protect people from losing their money – people in their 40s, 50s and 60s – these are significant amount of monies. As I said, every day, $2 million being lost. We need to help them.

So, when it comes to this, to me, deterrence is the primary factor to stop it from happening. If they know, just like in Singapore, people know that in many other cases, if you commit an offence, you are likely to be found out and caught; and if you are caught, you are likely to be found guilty, and that is a very significant influence on conduct. We need to bring that same attitude towards scams, because otherwise people think, "Well, I get a bit of money and I get maybe a rap on the knuckles".

Having said that, I recognise that there will be some young people who were genuinely misled, which is why the legislation and the Sentencing Advisory Guidelines, too, took into account the possibility that if the person did not know what he was doing or was genuinely misled, it is possible for the person to face a different sentence, even probation.

So, the reformative training by way of detention or a custodial sentence is not mandatory. We are not mandating custodial sentences. The Courts do have a discretion in terms of looking at the facts and saying this young person was genuinely misled, it was not his or her fault. But there are some fairly clear criteria on assessing this.

So, there are exceptions possible; but subject to that, I think we ought to go with the approach of deterrence and we ought to go with the approach of a massive public education so that people understand, young people understand. As I said, this is not an occasion to go soft.

Note(s) to Question No(s) 11:

1 Question subsequently withdrawn: To ask the Senior Minister, Coordinating Minister for National Security and Minister for Home Affairs with suspects as young as 15 among the 254 scammers and money mules investigated in the recent island-wide operation, how is the Ministry working with schools and parents to stop young people from being recruited as money mules through job offers and social media before they end up with a criminal record.