Singapore hangs fine threats over Meta to fight Facebook scams

The Singapore government has instructed Facebook’s parent company, Meta Platforms, to improve its actions in fighting online scams on its social media platform. Meta has until September 30 to comply or face hefty financial penalties. 

According to the Straits Times, the directive was issued on Thursday under the country’s Online Criminal Harms Act (OCHA). It is the first time the law has been invoked against a major social media company.

Meta must comply with OCHA rules or face fines

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) announced that Meta, which owns Facebook, must improve its facial recognition systems and expedite reviews of scam-related user reports from Singapore. 

Local authorities said the call-to-action was made after impersonation scams involving fake accounts, advertisements, and business pages posing as government officials surged in the country.

Meta faces fines of up to S$1 million ($776,400) if it fails to meet the requirements. If the offense continues beyond the initial conviction, the company could be liable for additional fines of up to S$100,000 for each day of non-compliance.

“While Meta has taken steps to address the risk of impersonation scams globally, MHA and SPF remain concerned by the prevalence of such scams in Singapore,” MHA said.

As reported by Cryptopolitan, the decision to issue the order was first signaled on September 3 at the Global Anti-Scam Summit Asia 2025.

“Facebook is the top platform used by scammers to commit such impersonation scams. Stemming the proliferation of such impersonation scams is critical to protect the public from harm and uphold trust in our Government and public institutions,” a MHA spokesperson told the South China Morning Post.

Bad actors posing as Singapore government leaders

According to figures provided to the media by local authorities, scams involving impersonations of prominent Singaporean leaders have reached thousands in the last year. Between June 2024 and June 2025, the Singapore Police Force (SPF) disrupted about 2,000 fraudulent advertisements and fake monikers on Facebook. 

Many of these involved videos or images of Prime Minister Lawrence Wong and 66-year-old former Defense Minister Ng Eng Hen being misused in fake promotions.

Wong warned the public in March not to fall for advertisements using deepfakes or doctored images of him. These fake posts attempted to lure victims into crypto investments, money-making schemes, or fraudulent services for permanent residency applications.

Police data shows that government official impersonation scams nearly tripled year-on-year. Authorities recorded 1,762 cases in the first half of 2025, compared with 589 during the same period in 2024.

Victims lost S$172 million ($126.5 million) in the first six months of 2025, nearly double the S$91.5 million ($67.2 million) lost during the first half of 2024.

Facebook flooded with ‘dropshipping’ scams

Advertising regulators and cybersecurity experts warn consumers to be wary of online shops promoting goods they do not stock, with many turning out to be fraudulent “drop-shipping” operations.

On Facebook and Instagram, shoppers are being lured into advertisements of clearance sales or closing-down discounts. Many customers falling for the scheme receive nothing after paying, or end up with items of far lower quality than advertised.

Some shops even encourage multiple purchases with tiered discounts, such as 20% off one item and 40% off two, to drag consumers into bigger losses.

According to Marta Mallavibarrena, a cybersecurity researcher in Madrid, four different shops on Instagram were using the same promotional language, each beginning with “Sadly, we are closing …” to announce supposed sales.

Some ads offered men’s outerwear, while others promoted animal print clothing. Mallavibarrena checked Meta’s ad library and found nearly 50,000 advertisements containing the same wording.

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