F

our members of an international online scam ring have been taken into custody for allegedly defrauding a Chinese company and its American counterparts out of hundreds of thousands of US dollars.

National Police'€™s special and economics crime director, Brig. Gen. Kamil Razak, said that the suspects, identified only by their initials RA, WL, SP and MHC, had intercepted the email correspondence of Guangzhou-based Yantai Newstar Aero Hydraulics Co., Ltd. and its business partners, Delavan AG Pumps Inc. and McNeilus Companies, in June 2013.

'€œThey observed the email correspondence. At the time when the companies were about to seal a deal, the suspects sent an email using an email address that looked similar to the Chinese company'€™s. They told the US companies to transfer the money to another bank account because its original account was being audited,'€ Kamil said in Jakarta.

Falling prey to the bogus email, Delavan and McNeilus respectively wired US$227,882 and $101,430 to a Bank Mandiri account under the name of PT Kendiva, a firm in which SP serves as director.

'€œThe hackers then channeled the funds into several other bank accounts and immediately cashed and spent the money,'€ he said.

In his role as the bank account'€™s owner, SP received five percent of the stolen funds. The remaining cash was distributed to the syndicate'€™s members, including RA'€™s Nigerian husband, Kelvin Kamara. Kamara has been in police custody since last November.

Kamara and his four accomplices will be charged under multiple articles of the 2008 Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, the 2010 Money Laundering Law and the 2011 Funds Transfer Law.

According to Kamil, the force is coordinating with Interpol to track a Nigerian hacker linked to the scam.

'€œThe hacker may not live in Indonesia. The syndicate only used Indonesia to pool the illicit proceeds. We have identified that the hacker used an IP address that originated in the UK,'€ he said.

It is not the first time Kamara had committed a fraud in this country. In June of last year, the Medan Police of North Sumatra named Kamara as a suspect in a church charity fraud. He, along with a Sierra Leone national, Papson, and an Indonesian, Nina Safitri, managed to embezzle Rp 290 million from a Medan priest.

Kamara had claimed he was a soccer player with the PSPS soccer club in Pekanbaru, Riau '€” a claim that was later refuted by club officials.

Several foreign hackers have been known to have utilized Indonesia as a haven. Last July, the National Police arrested 35 Chinese people and 21 Taiwanese for their alleged involvement in a cybercrime network that targeted public officials and taxpayers in China.

From their rented houses in six cities in Indonesia, the syndicate sent emails and made phone calls to their targets in China.