National Bureau of Investigation agents have arrested two suspects in Quezon City recently for online hacking.
NBI Officer-in-Charge Eric Distor identified the suspects as Jayson Dela Cruz and Kevin Marmolejo who were arrested during entrapment operations by agents of the NBI Cyber-Crime Division (NBI-CCD).
Suspects Dela Cruz and Marmolejo were charged before the Office of the Chief City Prosecutor of Quezon City for violations of RA 8484 (Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998) in relation to RA 10175 (Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012).
The NBI made the arrest after receivig a letter from Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas requesting for an investigation of the growing number of phishing sites designed to appear as legitimate online banking portals of major commercial banks.
These sites’ purpose is to gather the log in credentials of legitimate bank account holders, providing the means to open the online banking accounts of the users and to drain their funds.
The NBI has determined that preliminary to the theft of funds from the hacked online banking accounts, the hackers usually procure access including, but not limited to, automatic teller machine cards, personal identification numbers, usernames and passwords for legitimate online banking accounts in the names of the victims. The suspects would then use these accounts to hold and withdraw the stolen funds using the identities of the victims.
Distor said that on April 14, the NBI-CCD received an intelligence report that Dela Cruz posted an advertisement on Facebook offering to purchase access devices for online banking accounts. With this, an entrapment operation was conducted resulting to the arrest of Dela Cruz in Quezon City.
Recovered from the scene of the crime were BPI Debit Card issued under the name of Joseph Anano Teves, and a cellphone.
Dela Cruz was also scheduled to meet Marmolejo in a bank in Novaliches, Quezon City in the afternoon of the same day, prompting the NBI to conduct a follow-up operation.
This also resulted to the arrest of Marmolejo during the operation.