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.
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