KUALA LUMPUR – Police crippled an international syndicate that developed and sold fake websites, and financial data phishing templates with the arrest of eight individuals in simultaneous raids spanning four states on Monday.
Inspector General of Police Tan Sri Razarudin Husain said the suspects comprised seven local men and a Thai woman, aged between 29 and 56.
He said they were arrested in Sabah, Perak, Selangor and Kuala Lumpur.
“Initial investigations found the syndicate’s mastermind is a local man who is also the content developer and believed to be involved in numerous cyber fraud activities.
“This syndicate was operating in Sabah and they targeted the official websites of the Australian government, foreign banking institutions, and organisations with ‘.gov’ and ‘.edu’ in their website addresses, by providing phishing templates to illegally obtain the personal data of internet users.
“The syndicate was also involved in stolen credentials such as passwords, banking details and personal data related to selling and buying transactions from a range of countries, including the United States and Malaysia,” he told a press conference at Bukit Aman, here today.
Police also managed to detect 1,038 usernames and passwords of locals, including those belonging to civil servants from the Customs Department, which could be illegally accessed by the syndicate.
Razarudin said following a collaboration with the US Federal Bureau of Investigations and Australian federal police, police have seized cryptocurrency worth RM965,808 in an e-wallet, nine mobile phones, 11 bank cards, 186 documents, two vehicles and six pieces of jewellery.
Also seized was a computer and server registered under the name of the 36-year-old main suspect at Technology Park Malaysia, which was used for web-hosting services at www.bulletproftlink.com through Telegram.
“This syndicate has been operating since 2015 but became active in cybercrimes last year. Four of the eight suspects have previous criminal records related to drugs, scams and gambling.
“The checks, further profiling and money trails by the Bukit Aman commercial crimes investigation department with the anti-money laundering investigation department found that the syndicate is also involved in two non-existent investment schemes,” he added.
The schemes are CFG International and ECCoin, using the Huobi platform, related to which 37 police reports have been made so far with losses amounting to RM1.2 million, he said.
Razarudin said two investigation papers have been opened under Section 4(1) of the Computer Crimes Act 1997 and 15 investigations under Section 420 of the Penal Code for defrauding through non-existent investments. – November 8, 2023