Singapore will table fresh legislation to lock in deterrent sentences for scam offenders and their facilitators, including young people, Senior Minister and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam told Parliament on Tuesday, responding to a High Court decision that spared several teenage money mules with probation.
Shanmugam said the Ministry of Home Affairs would move “soon” with a bill that makes explicit Parliament’s intent: courts should not treat youth as a reason to go light on people who hand over bank accounts, Singpass credentials or phone lines that enable syndicates to drain victims’ savings.
September ruling reset the politics
The trigger was a Sept. 10 judgment from a three-judge panel led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon. The court heard appeals from Mohamed Erzan Taib Zohri and six related cases involving money mule conduct; six of the seven defendants were under 21.
Menon’s coram allowed appeals in four cases and imposed probation or community-based sentences, while dismissing three others. Rehabilitation weighed heavily in the written reasoning, even though the Sentencing Advisory Panel had published guidelines recommending imprisonment or reformative training for most scam-related offenders, including those below 21 outside the Youth Court.
Shanmugam said the government had believed existing statutes and the panel’s guidelines were already clear. “The High Court said the legislation must be clear,” he told lawmakers. “We respect the court’s views.” The planned bill, he added, will state plainly that the Erzan approach “is not to be followed.”
Scale of losses behind the hard line
Parliament’s debate unfolded against stark numbers. Shanmugam said police now receive about 90 scam reports a day, with roughly S$2 million in daily losses. In 2025 alone, more than 5,000 elderly victims lost about S$200 million, he said, asking who bore responsibility when a young person rents out an account for a few hundred dollars.
More than 1,000 youths were investigated in connection with scam reports last year, according to ministry figures cited in the chamber. The Ministry of Social and Family Development has separately reported that cheating offences among young people jumped 37 percent between 2024 and 2025, driven largely by mule activity tied to online job scams.
“This is not the time to go soft,” Shanmugam said, arguing that leniency would invite syndicates to recruit minors who believe age alone will shield them from jail.
Education without dropping deterrence
Government MPs pressed Shanmugam on prevention. He said many apprehended youths “know precisely what they were doing” and were tempted by offers of S$800 or S$1,000. Police already work with schools through crime-prevention talks and Parents Gateway advisories, and a youth-centric anti-scam campaign launched in April.
Shanmugam stressed that Singapore still values rehabilitation. Youth Courts can issue community sentences, and legislation in recent years expanded their jurisdiction to everyone under 18. For scam facilitation, however, he said deterrence must outweigh individual second chances because each mule account can victimize dozens of strangers.
Christopher de Souza (PAP-Holland-Bukit Timah), who tabled the original question, and Dr Wan Rizal Wan Zakariah (PAP-Jalan Besar) both asked how ministries would reach students before recruiters do. Shanmugam said the government would study whether structured financial-literacy modules should accompany conditional warnings, but he framed the upcoming bill as the sharper tool.
What the bill will do
Officials did not publish draft text on Tuesday, but Shanmugam’s remarks sketch the direction: statutory language that tracks the Sentencing Advisory Panel’s deterrence-first recommendations and closes the gap the High Court identified. Parliament has passed scam-specific laws three times in the past three years without carving out youth exceptions; the new measure appears aimed at ensuring judges read that history the same way ministers do.
Until the bill is tabled, prosecutors and defence lawyers will watch whether lower courts adjust bail and charge sheets in anticipation. Victim groups, meanwhile, will measure success by whether daily loss figures finally bend—something no single court ruling, and no speech alone, can deliver.