An island on edge: Singapore turns to caning to fight a new kind of crime
On a humid morning at a neighbourhood hawker centre, a kopi pours into a paper cup and the regulars argue, not about football or the next MRT delay, but about a law that feels simultaneously ancient and shockingly modern.
“If someone steals your pension online, are you supposed to smile and move on?” asks Mr. Lim, a retiree with a sharp, weathered face and hands that have known decades of hard work. “Maybe this will make them think twice.” He sips his coffee and shrugs. “But I also worry about the young men forced to do this—are they the real criminals or just victims?”
Singapore this month enacted tougher penalties for scammers: mandatory caning of at least six strokes, up to a maximum of 24, for the most serious offenders, to run alongside prison terms and fines. Those who assist—”money mules” who lend bank accounts, or people selling SIM cards—face discretionary caning of up to 12 strokes.
Why now? The arithmetic of loss and outrage
The move comes amid a surge of losses attributed to scams. Between 2020 and the first half of 2025, authorities say Singaporeans and residents lost more than US$2.8 billion to fraud and deception—nearly $3 billion siphoned away by phone, message, romance, and crypto cons. The Ministry of Home Affairs has told parliament that roughly 190,000 scam cases were reported in that period, a staggering toll that reads like a catalogue of broken trust.
“Fighting scams is a top national priority,” the ministry said in a statement as it pushed the legislation through. The line was short, crisp—and meant to signal a sense of emergency.
From hotline apps to canes: a multi-pronged campaign
Singapore’s response has been both technical and punitive. In recent years the government has launched public education campaigns, a national hotline and the ScamShield app, which allows users to vet suspicious calls, websites and messages. Posters in MRT stations dramatise phishing flows; community centres host talks aimed at seniors who are often the most vulnerable.
“Education and prevention are crucial,” says a cybersecurity researcher at a local university. “But when criminal syndicates industrialise scams—running call centres, recruiting vulnerable migrants, using sophisticated spoofing—the tools have to match the scale.”
And the scale is real. Law enforcement actions have revealed sprawling networks across Southeast Asia. In one high-profile sweep, police tied more than US$115 million in seized assets to Chen Zhi, a British-Cambodian businessman accused of running forced-labour camps in Cambodia that were used as bases for massive online scamming operations.
The human stories behind the numbers
Numbers can numb. Stories do not.
A young woman who asked to be identified only as “Nadia” recalls being lured into a “work-from-home” scheme when she arrived in the region looking for better wages. “They said I’d be doing customer service. But once I got there, they gave me scripts. If I didn’t hit my numbers, they’d beat us or lock the doors. I felt so ashamed,” she says, voice low. “Some of the girls cried every night. We were promised one thing—and sold another.”
Across town, an office worker, Jason, recounts the day his mother almost lost her life savings to an investment scam. “The caller sounded like a bank manager. My mum transferred everything. We only got half back. She stopped going to the temple for a while—too embarrassed,” he says. “No punishment will bring money back, but maybe it will stop someone else from falling into the trap.”
Local colour and the ecosystem of fraud
Walk through a neighbourhood like Geylang at dusk and you’ll see the contradictions: gleaming glass offices that are the engine of a wealthy nation, shadowed lanes where migrant labourers live in cramped quarters, and a culture where saving face matters. Those fault lines help explain how scams flourish.
Phone numbers are spoofed to look like trusted institutions; romance scammers build emotional trust over weeks; crypto schemes glitter with promises of quick wealth. The syndicates behind these operations often prey on loneliness, greed, and fear—universal human currents that cross borders and languages.
Debate, dissent and the ethics of punishment
Not everyone welcomes caning as the answer. Human rights advocates, both local and international, argue that corporal punishment is cruel and irreversible, and that it risks punishing lower-level participants coerced or trafficked into criminality.
“Caning is a deeply problematic response to a problem that requires international cooperation, social support and targeted law enforcement,” says a researcher at an NGO focusing on forced labour. “We should be asking why these networks exist, who profits from them, and how to protect the most vulnerable.”
Others counter that Singapore’s approach is pragmatic and steeped in the country’s legal traditions. “Singapore has always had strict penalties for certain crimes, and that has shaped social norms,” notes a political analyst. “This move is as much about signalling—telling both the public and international partners that the state intends to act decisively—as it is about individual deterrence.”
Will harsh penalties deter global syndicates?
That is the central question. Criminal networks adapt quickly. When one route is closed, another opens. Money mules may move to new jurisdictions; call centres shift to different cities; encrypted messaging apps proliferate. For every tightened knot, there are a dozen loose threads.
Yet there is a second avenue of action that offers cause for cautious optimism: cross-border cooperation. Singapore’s recent asset seizures and regional investigations point to a growing willingness among governments to collaborate. Technology firms, too, are increasingly engaged—flagging suspicious transactions, blocking malicious numbers and investing in detection tools.
Where does this leave the rest of us?
As you read from wherever you are in the world, the Singapore story asks a larger question: how should societies respond when crime becomes digital, sprawling, and deeply human? Do we answer with stricter punishments, or with more humane prevention and support for victims? Do we treat the exploited as offenders—or as another class of victims needing rescue?
“It’s never just about the canes,” says an elder social worker. “You need to help families recover. You need to give people skills so greedy promises don’t sound like salvation. Otherwise, the cycle continues.”
Justice, like journalism, is messy. It resists tidy solutions. But as Singapore tries a harsh new tack, the global lesson is clear: in a world where scams cross borders like light, responses must too—combining local instincts with international strategy, technical tools with social safety nets.
So tell me: if your grandmother received a call claiming her bank account was frozen, what would you want the state to do? And what would you do yourself?
