Seven men and one woman aged between 17 and 28 will be charged in court on 24 June 2022 for their suspected involvement in knowingly disclosing their Singpass User IDs, Passwords and One-Time-Passwords (OTPs) to unknown persons, for monetary gains.
The Singpass accounts were used by criminals to open bank accounts to launder proceeds of crime derived from the recent spate of DBS Phishing scams where more than 60 victims had fallen prey to, and suffered financial losses amounting to more than $60,000.
Three of the men to be charged had also allegedly deleted communications records that were relevant for investigations, and will be charged with an additional offence of intentionally obstructing the course of justice each.
Investigations revealed that these individuals purportedly relinquished their Singpass credentials for promised monetary gains between $100 and $500.
Some of them did not receive any monetary benefits as the recipients of their credentials turned evasive after successfully opening the bank accounts.
Penalties
The offence of, knowingly and without authority, disclosing any password, access code or any other means of gaining access to any program or data held in any computer under Section 8(1) of the Computer Misuse Act 1993 carries an imprisonment term not exceeding three years and a fine not exceeding $10,000, or both
For first-time offenders; and an imprisonment term not exceeding five years and a fine not exceeding $20,000, or both, for subsequent convictions.
The offence of intentionally obstructing, preventing, perverting or defeating the course of justice under Section 204A of the Penal Code 1871 carries an imprisonment term not exceeding seven years and a fine, or both.