The Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) has arrested 17 people in central Taiwan who are suspected of using phishing messages sent to cellphones to steal credit card information and make purchases online.
The bureau’s Telecommunications Investigation Corps and Taichung City Police arrested the suspects during seven raids conducted from October last year to last month, police said.
An investigation was launched after it was discovered that a massive number of suspicious text messages were being sent from specific mobile phone numbers in central Taiwan, they said.
Photo: Reuters
Recipients of the messages — which appeared to be sent from telecom companies, Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co and motor vehicle offices — were told that their “points” were about to expire and they should use them quickly to make purchases, or that they had unpaid toll fees or fuel taxes, police said.
The messages included links to sites where people could enter their credit card information, investigators found. Scammers allegedly used the credit card numbers on Apple Pay, Google Pay and other mobile payment platforms to make purchases online.
Police identified the primary suspect as a Taiwanese man surnamed Tu (杜), saying he had asked Chinese engineers to set up the phishing Web sites and used an SMS gateway device to mass distribute the text messages.
Tu directed his accomplices to use the captured credit card numbers to purchase luxury items, iPhones and points for online games, the police said.
One of the accomplices, surnamed Liao (廖), allegedly obtained 12,000 sets of credit card numbers using phishing messages in Taiwan and 44 other countries.
Three hundred of the credit card numbers were from Taiwan, police said, adding that the group successfully used 35 of them to purchase goods worth more than NT$2 million (US$63,391).
The Taichung Prosecutors’ Office is investigating whether the group contravened the Organized Crime Prevention Act (組織犯罪防制條例), Money Laundering Control Act (洗錢防制法) and Personal Data Protection Act (個人資料保護法).
The Taichung District Court ordered that Tu and another accomplice, surnamed Hsu (徐), be detained.
AGING: While Japan has 22 submarines, Taiwan only operates four, two of which were commissioned by the US in 1945 and 1946, and transferred to Taiwan in 1973 Taiwan would need at least 12 submarines to reach modern fleet capabilities, CSBC Corp, Taiwan chairman Chen Cheng-hung (陳政宏) said in an interview broadcast on Friday, citing a US assessment. CSBC is testing the nation’s first indigenous defense submarine, the Hai Kun (海鯤, Narwhal), which is scheduled to be delivered to the navy next month or in July. The Hai Kun has completed torpedo-firing tests and is scheduled to undergo overnight sea trials, Chen said on an SET TV military affairs program. Taiwan would require at least 12 submarines to establish a modern submarine force after assessing the nation’s operational environment and defense
A white king snake that frightened passengers and caused a stir on a Taipei MRT train on Friday evening has been claimed by its owner, who would be fined, Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC) said yesterday. A person on Threads posted that he thought he was lucky to find an empty row of seats on Friday after boarding a train on the Bannan (Blue) Line, only to spot a white snake with black stripes after sitting down. Startled, he jumped up, he wrote, describing the encounter as “terrifying.” “Taipei’s rat control plan: Release snakes on the metro,” one person wrote in reply, referring
The coast guard today said that it had disrupted "illegal" operations by a Chinese research ship in waters close to the nation and driven it away, part of what Taipei sees a provocative pattern of China's stepped up maritime activities. The coast guard said that it on Thursday last week detected the Chinese ship Tongji (同濟號), which was commissioned only last year, 29 nautical miles (54km) southeast of the southern tip of Taiwan, although just outside restricted waters. The ship was observed lowering ropes into the water, suspected to be the deployment of scientific instruments for "illegal" survey operations, and the coast
Taiwan’s two cases of hantavirus so far this year are on par with previous years’ case numbers, and the government is coordinating rat extermination work, so there should not be any outbreaks, Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Director-General Philip Lo (羅一鈞) said today in an interview with the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper). An increase in rat sightings in Taipei and New Taipei City has raised concerns about the spread of hantavirus, as rats can carry the disease. In January, a man in his 70s who lived in Taipei’s Daan District (大安) tested positive posthumously for hantavirus, Taiwan’s
RSS