T

he Jakarta Police Cyber Crime division has broken up a ring of credit card fraudsters with the arrest of four suspects.

Over 1,600 credit card holders had been targeted by the ring since 2014 with a total loss of Rp 5 billion (US$375,000).

“The number of victims might be higher than that. If we didn’t take action, it would possibly lead to even greater losses,” Jakarta Police Special Crimes division chief Sr. Comr. Fadil Imran said on Wednesday as quoted by kompas.com.

The suspects, identified only as GS, A, AH and PSS, had allegedly stolen credit card holder data from several private banks.

The police arrested PSS in May at the office of a telecommunications operator on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta. “The suspect was filling a request to replace a phone SIM card using an apparently fake ID card,” he said. After developing the case, the police discovered the alleged involvement of the other three suspects. It is thought that each suspect played different roles and divided themselves to three groups.

A and AH, contract workers at the marketing division of a bank, collected data from customers. The task of GS task was to create fake ID cards as well as to withdraw money from the stolen credit cards. Meanwhile, PSS changed the customers’ SIM card numbers. “GS was the mastermind and lured the others to follow suit. He was the IT specialist,” Fadil said.

The police are currently awaiting a report from the Financial Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (PPATK) to find out where the money went.

The police confiscated two laptops, 16 hand phones, two copies of fake ID cards, five phone SIM cards and several ATM cards.