Singapore has never been shy about using caning as a deterrent for serious crime, but until recently it was not part of the toolkit against scammers. That changed with the Criminal Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act 2025, passed in Parliament on 4 November 2025, which introduced mandatory caning for people convicted of running or facilitating scams. The caning provisions became operational on 30 December 2025, meaning offenders committing scam related crimes from that date onward can now be caned in addition to facing jail time and fines.
Why Scams Became a Caning Offence
For years, Singapore’s approach to scams leaned mainly on public education campaigns, bank safeguards, and after the fact investigation. Those tools have not been able to keep pace with how organised and persistent scam syndicates have become, particularly as more of the activity has moved online and across borders, making it harder to catch the people ultimately responsible. Caning entered the conversation as a way to raise the personal cost of participating in a scam syndicate to a level that could not be brushed off as a routine business risk.
The scale of the problem is what pushed Parliament to act. Scams are now the most common type of crime in Singapore. Between 2020 and the first half of 2025, roughly 190,000 scam cases were reported, with total losses estimated at around 3.7 billion dollars. During the debate on the Bill, Senior Minister of State for Home Affairs Sim Ann noted that scams made up about 60 percent of all reported crime in Singapore, and that the losses were worth more than three and a half times the cost of building a major public hospital.
The idea of caning scammers was first raised in Parliament by an individual Member of Parliament after a constituent lost her life savings to a scam. The Ministry of Home Affairs reviewed the suggestion and agreed that stronger deterrence was needed, leading directly to this law.
What the Law Introduces
Under the amendments, scammers, as well as members and recruiters of scam syndicates, face mandatory caning of at least six strokes, rising to a maximum of 24 strokes depending on how serious the offence is. This is on top of whatever jail term or fine a court imposes, since caning is an additional punishment rather than a replacement for imprisonment.
The law also targets the people who make scams possible without necessarily running them. These are often called scam mules, and they include people who hand over their bank accounts, SIM cards, or Singpass credentials to be used by scammers, or who help collect and transfer stolen money, gold, or other valuables. Scam mules face discretionary caning of up to 12 strokes, meaning a court decides whether caning applies based on the specifics of the case, rather than it being automatic.
Who Can Be Caned Under This Law
The distinction between mandatory and discretionary caning matters. For scammers themselves, and for people who are members of or recruiters for a scam syndicate while knowing it is a scam syndicate, caning is mandatory upon conviction, meaning judges do not have discretion to skip it. For scam mules, caning is available as a punishment but is left to the court’s judgement, which allows for some flexibility depending on how knowingly or unknowingly someone became involved.
This tiered approach reflects an attempt to punish the organisers and profiteers most harshly while still holding lower level facilitators accountable, without necessarily treating every mule exactly the same as a mastermind.
How This Fits With Other Anti-Scam Measures
Caning for scammers did not arrive in isolation. It complements other tools introduced around the same period, including the Protection from Scams Act 2025, which lets police freeze the bank accounts of people who are actively being targeted by scammers, and earlier measures under the Law Enforcement and Other Matters Act that tightened rules around SIM card sales to make it harder for scammers to obtain the tools they need.
Officials have described the strategy as multi-layered: making it harder for scammers to get the enablers they need, such as SIM cards and bank accounts, protecting victims in real time when a scam is detected, and now imposing much harsher penalties once a scammer is caught and convicted. Caning is meant to sit at the punishment end of that chain, reinforcing that scams are treated with the same seriousness as other violent or predatory crimes that have long carried caning as a penalty in Singapore.
How Caning Fits Into Singapore’s Wider Sentencing Framework
Caning is not a new form of punishment in Singapore. Before this Act, there were already around 96 offences that could attract discretionary caning and 65 that carried mandatory caning, covering serious crimes such as robbery and rape. What makes the 2025 amendments notable is that scams, which many people previously thought of mainly as financial or white collar crime, have now been placed in the same category of seriousness as these violent and predatory offences.
Judges and the law itself distinguish between mandatory and discretionary caning largely based on how directly culpable the offender is. For scammers and syndicate leaders, Parliament removed judicial discretion entirely, meaning a conviction automatically brings a minimum of six strokes. For scam mules, the law preserves judicial discretion, which allows a court to weigh factors such as how much the person knew about what they were facilitating, and whether they were themselves manipulated or coerced into playing a supporting role.
Senior Minister of State Sim Ann noted during the Bill’s second reading that scam syndicates carry the highest level of culpability because they organise and profit from the crime, while lower level operatives, though still liable, are often the ones most likely to be caught and are not necessarily the main beneficiaries. This reasoning shaped how the caning provisions were tiered.
The Bill passed without amendments, and Members of Parliament who spoke during the debate largely focused on whether caning would actually deter people from becoming mules, given that many mules are recruited through job scams or social pressure rather than setting out to commit crime. The government’s position was that even if some mules are themselves misled into helping scammers, the harm caused to victims is severe enough that deterrence needs to apply across the whole chain, not only at the top.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are there any exemptions to caning based on a person’s age or health?
Singapore law generally exempts certain groups from caning, including women, men above a set age, and people who are medically certified as unfit, though the specific medical determination is made by a court appointed doctor at the time of sentencing rather than being automatic or assumed in advance.
Does this law apply to scams committed from overseas targeting people in Singapore?
The law is aimed at scam offences connected to Singapore, and enforcement against offenders based overseas depends on extradition and international cooperation, which is a separate and often slower process compared to prosecuting someone who is caught and charged within Singapore.
Can someone be caned for a scam attempt that did not succeed?
Caning is tied to conviction for the relevant scam or scam related offence, and whether an attempt that did not result in a completed scam still qualifies depends on how the specific charge is framed and proven in court, since attempt and completed offences are not always treated identically.
Is there a legal limit on how many strokes of the cane a single offender can receive across multiple charges?
Singapore law generally caps the total number of strokes that can be imposed in a single case, even if someone is convicted on multiple charges that would each individually carry caning, though the exact cap depends on the specific offences and how the sentencing is structured.
Did this law change any other penalties besides caning for scams?
Yes. The same Act also recalibrated caning for a number of unrelated, less serious offences such as vandalism, and separately introduced new provisions covering online sexual offences, including penalties for sharing obscene content and AI-generated sexual images, which are addressed in more detail elsewhere.
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