181 people are being investigated for their suspected involvement in loanshark activities, following simultaneous raids conducted across Singapore by the CID and the Police Land Divisions.
The police said in a statement yesterday that preliminary investigations revealed that 15 of the suspects allegedly harassed debtors at their homes.
Another 28 suspects are also being suspected of being runners who helped the loansharks by carrying out ATM transfers.
One of the suspects was believed to have provided false contact information to the loansharks, resulting in an innocent victim suffering harassment by the loansharks at their home.
The remaining 137 suspects are believed to have opened bank accounts for the loansharks and given them their ATM cards, PIN numbers and/or iBanking tokens.
The police are reminding the public not to respond to unsolicited loan advertisements, where the loansharks are using online platforms and text messaging to look for victims.
They are also advised to report those messages as spam, as well as not to work with or help them in any way.
Persons found guilty of carrying out or assisting unlicensed moneylenders face a jail term of up to 4 years, a fine between $30,000 to $300,000, and 3 to 6 strokes of the cane for first-time offenders.
Persons found guilty of harassing someone on behalf of unlicensed moneylenders face a jail term of up to 5 years, a fine between $5,000 to $50,000 and caned between 3 to 6 strokes.
Persons found guilty to providing false contact information to get monetary loans from loansharks face a jail term of up to 12 months.