At least 2 persons were saved by the Singapore police from falling prey to a bitcoin scam, in separate cases. Per the report, people were tricked to purchase bitcoins from bitcoin machines under the instructions of scammers. Fortunately, the police came to their rescue at the eleventh hour.

As reported in the first instance, a person who wishes to be only referred to as Mr. J revealed that a woman contacted him on a dating app in September. He added that, they both began to communicate through text, calls and sometimes video calls.

After their friendship, the lady began to request for money from him to help her with one or two issues. According to the victim, the lady always makes him deposit the money into different accounts.

In November, he was asked to buy her some bitcoins from a bitcoin machine. There was an interference from the local police officer, just as Mr. J was about to purchase the bitcoins.

When Mr. J showed the police officer his chat logs with the lady, he was told he has been a victim of a love scam. Mr. J decided to share his experience in order to warn others about such scams.

In the second instance, police officers also managed to prevent a man from purchasing bitcoins from the same machine on November 30. He was asked to purchase the bitcoins with some money that has been deposited by a victim of a scam.

The man would have unintentionally become a money mule if he had transferred the bitcoin to the scammer. The reason is that, those bitcoins were deemed illegal proceeds from the victim.

Mr. Ho Cher Hin is the police officer in charge of Commercial Crime Squad at Central Police Division. He said that the increasing use of bitcoin machines is one of the several modes of operation which scammers use to avoid detection of their criminal activities.

He also noted that no government entity would request for personal details or money transfer over the phone or via automated voice machines.

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