Arrest Cryptocurrency Thieves With Assets Of IDR 5.1 Billion, Riau Police Searches Other Perpetrators

Three luxury cars belonging to the suspect were the theft of digital crypto currency which was arrested by the Riau Police. BETWEEN ANTARA/Annisa Firdausi

RIAU - Riau Regional Police (Polda) arrested a man with the initials DA (39) on suspicion of stealing crypto or crypto digital currency by hacking the victim's account since 2017 to obtain assets worth IDR 5.1 billion.

"The assets are houses, three luxury cars and various motorbikes with total assets of Rp. 5.1 billion," said Director of Crimesus of the Riau Police, Senior Commissioner of Police Nasriadi during the disclosure of the case in Pekanbaru, Thursday, January 11, which was confiscated by Antara.

He explained that DA used a fake link to the Metamask account or a crypto digital wallet and spread it on various social media. The link contains a notification of closing the Metamask account so that the victim entered an ID and password which was then stored in a DA email.

"Then the suspect can enter the victim's account and dredge the balance to be sent to his Indodax account. From there DA purchased ETH (Ethereum) coins," he explained.

After the ETH coin is purchased, the suspect will wait for the price of the ETH coin to go up for resale. After converting it to the rupiah, the money is transferred to his account.

Until now, the police are still investigating the connection between other perpetrators in this case and the ownership of other assets from the DA. In addition, Nasriadi also appealed to the public not to directly click on links that arise from smartphones or computers.

The perpetrators were charged with Paragraph (1) in conjunction with Article 48 Paragraph (1) and/or Article 30 Paragraph (2) in conjunction with Article 46 Paragraph (2) of Law Number 1 of 2024 concerning the Second Amendment to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions. The perpetrators are threatened with a maximum sentence of nine years in prison and a maximum fine of Rp. 3 billion.