Singapore Police and seven crypto exchanges identified 145+ potential scam victims, preventing $4.2M in losses. The operation used blockchain analytics to intervene before transfers completed.
The Singapore Police Force and seven crypto exchanges prevented more than $4.2 million in potential scam losses over six weeks, reaching 145 victims before funds left their accounts.
Police analysts used blockchain tools from Chainalysis and TRM Labs to flag transactions tied to impersonation, investment, job and romance scams. They then worked with exchanges to match those on-chain patterns with specific customer accounts and contacted those customers by phone or in person.
Coinbase Singapore disclosed the results on July 10 in an X post:
"Over the past 6 weeks, Coinbase worked closely with the Singapore Police Anti-Scam Centre and Cyber Investigation Branch on a joint anti-scam operation. Together, we stopped 145+ people from losing a combined $4.2M+ to scams."
The operation ran from April 16 through May 31. Coinbase, Coinhako, Gemini, Independent Reserve, OKX, StraitsX and Upbit all took part. The police said those exchanges provided customer data fast enough to allow officers to intervene before any transfer was completed.
The Singapore Police Force said in a statement:
"The participating cryptocurrency exchanges supported the operation by providing timely customer information, facilitating more than 145 targeted interventions conducted over the phone and in-person, and allowed officers to reach potential scam victims before funds were lost."
Blockchain records can show suspicious transaction flows. Tying those flows to real people is the harder step. The Singapore model puts police investigative authority together with exchange-held customer records, creating a pipeline from on-chain red flags to a phone call or home visit.
The police did not release individual case details or a breakdown of how many flagged cases turned out to be real scams. More granular data later would help measure how often early intervention actually stops a completed scam rather than just delaying one.
The partnership will continue. The police said they would keep working with exchanges and other private-sector partners to fight cybercrime through proactive, intelligence-led operations.
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