SINGAPORE – UOB’s Raffles Place branch service manager, Ms Azlinah Amin was, on duty during the height of the gold buy rush in April when an elderly man walked in.

He asked if he could buy gold from the branch, but Ms Azlinah, 54, noticed that he was constantly checking his phone and texting.

The man wanted to buy $700,000 worth of gold to hand over to someone he had never met, but with her patience and persistence, Ms Azlinah saved him from losing all his savings to a scam syndicate.

On Oct 7, the National Crime Prevention Council (NCPC) held its first appreciation dinner at the Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel to recognise organisations which helped prevent crime.

Minister of State for Home Affairs Goh Pei Ming, who is also Minister of State for Social and Family Development, presented awards to 10 organisations for their crime-fighting contributions.

They were Marina Bay Sands, Meta, Motorola Solutions, UOB, OCBC Bank, Courts, Sheng Siong, Shopee, Singapore Pools and TikTok.

Said Mr Goh: “It’s encouraging to see more and more companies stepping forward and jointly working together to be able to tackle this collective challenge that we face – online scams.”

UOB’s Ms Azlinah talked to the media on Oct 7 about her encounter with the man, who wanted to buy gold from her branch and hand it to a stranger.

After much probing, he admitted that someone who claimed to be from an independent investment firm had contacted him to ask him to buy gold for better investment returns.

He said he was later connected to an official from the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and was told to buy 5kg of gold to hand over to the official.

Hearing that, Ms Azlinah determined that he was being duped by scammers into buying 5kg of gold worth $700,000 for a fake investment.

She then locked the man’s account. She said she had to calm the stunned ...