WhatsApp APK Capital With Traffic Ticket, Palembang Resident Drains Victim's Account By Up to IDR 2.3 Billion

PALEMBANG - South Sumatra Regional Police arrested a perpetrator of fraud by sending an Android package (APK) ticket. In the action, the perpetrator's initials ES (23), a resident of Pagelaran Tulung Selapan Ilir District, OKI Regency, claims to be a police officer.

Acting Director of Criminal Investigation and Criminal Investigation at the South Sumatra Regional Police, AKBP Putu Yudha Prawira, said that the perpetrator's method was to send a ticket via WhatsApp to the victim.

Then drained the account balance worth IDR 2.3 billion from the victim, a 58 year old resident of Palembang City.

The perpetrator sent an APK file of a traffic ticket to tap the cellphone, then the victim's account and email via an OTP (one-time password) code which was sent via SMS.

"After hacking the victim's email, the perpetrator also hacked the mobile banking using the username in the victim's email address. From there, the victim's balance was drained", explained Putu when releasing the case, quoted from Antara, Wednesday, September 27.

The perpetrator drained the victim's account balance for 3 consecutive days, from May 30 to June 1 2023 and used 20 accounts to transfer the victim's money with a total of more than 100 transactions.

The perpetrator randomly chooses a victim who has the first WhatsApp number 0811, then from there they will find out whether this number has an account with a fantastic value.

It is possible that the perpetrator took action with the help of his colleagues. However, he said, ES did it alone to send the APK link.

"We are still investigating where he put the money. He admitted that some of it was entrusted to his friends. We are still looking for that", he said.

The police confiscated a number of pieces of evidence in the form of eight accounts used by the perpetrator, 16 documents of the victim's mobile banking log-in activity, two cellphones and one SIM card of the perpetrator.

The perpetrator was charged with Article 30 paragraph (1) in conjunction with Article 46 of Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning Amendments to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions (UU ITE) with a sentence of 6 years in prison and a fine of IDR 600 million.

Meanwhile, ES admitted that he had been carrying out this practice since 2022. However, according to his confession, only one victim had managed to have his account balance drained.

He got the APK by buying it through a friend on Facebook for IDR 500 thousand.

He said that IDR 2.3 billion had been entrusted to his friends to save the money, and ES had spent some of it for his needs. The perpetrator admitted that he used the money to buy crystal methamphetamine.