Singapore institutes mandatory caning to punish online scammers

To combat a surge in modern-day online scams, Singapore has turned to a punishment from the past: caning.
This week, Singapore’s Parliament amended criminal law in the city-state to introduce caning as a penalty for scammers and scam mules after tens of thousands of scams resulting in nearly $385 million in losses were reported in the first half of this year alone. “Offenders who commit scams, defined as cheating mainly by means of remote communication, will be punished with at least six strokes of the cane,” Sim Ann, senior minister of state for foreign affairs and home affairs, said in a statement.