Two men linked to Singapore-based Chinese cybercrime ring first to plead guilty

SINGAPORE: Two Malaysian businessmen admitted on Tuesday (Oct 15) to a conspiracy to buy the personal data of more than 9,000 people from a Chinese national, who claimed he had the personal information of over a million Thai nationals.
These are the first guilty pleas linked to an alleged global cybercrime syndicate based in Singapore, run by Chinese criminals who operated out of a rented bungalow in Mount Sinai, with alleged victims from countries like India and Korea.
Penang resident Seow Gim Shen, 42, and Selangor resident Kong Chien Hoi, 39, pleaded guilty to one charge each of conspiring with Chinese national Sun Jiao to have the personal information of 9,369 unknown individuals supplied to them for gambling operations.
The court heard that Seow got to know a Chinese national named “Andy” sometime in 2019 while visiting a casino in Cambodia. Andy introduced him to a man named Joe, who was in fact Sun, 42.
Andy told Seow that Sun dealt in databases of personal information and could sell them to people involved in online gambling operations.
As Seow knew that his friend Kong had a client dealing in online gambling operations, he introduced Kong and Sun to each other.
The two Malaysian men did not know that Sun was staying in Singapore, or what businesses he ran.
They also did not know how Sun obtained his databases but believed they could have been stolen. Sun later allegedly told investigators that he had obtained the data through hacking other gambling websites.
Sometime around Aug 24 last year, Seow created a group chat titled “Malaysian Data” for the three of them, for the purpose of selling personal information that had been stolen from various websites.
On Jul 24 this year, while in Malaysia, Kong asked to buy personal information belonging to Thai nationals.
Sun said he had such information for over 1 million Thais. Kong asked for a sample, intending to use the data for an online gambling operation he was assisting in.
The website was accessible from various countries including Singapore.
Later that same day, Sun sent a file to Kong and Seow over WhatsApp, containing the personal information of more than 9,000 people including their names and phone numbers.
The file was a sample extracted from a larger database and was part of negotiations for the sale of the full database.
After receiving the file, Kong sent it to an associate known as “Nida” and instructed her to cold-call the numbers inside. 
On Aug 17, Nida sent Kong a detailed report stating that her team had made call tests for 2,000 numbers and sent out an SMS blast to all 9,369 numbers.
She provided the results, which showed that 34 per cent of the 2,000 numbers could be contacted. An SMS blast sent out to the 9,369 numbers showed that 32 per cent of the SMSes were successfully delivered.
Kong sent the results of the report to Sun in the group chat and began negotiating a price, with more data included.
Sun offered to give a discount. Kong said he also needed the personal information of people from Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and asked Sun to let him know how many phone numbers he could provide.
During the negotiation process between Aug 21 and Sep 7, Kong and Seow were concurrently and privately discussing whether the data was worth Sun’s asking price.
On Sep 7, Seow asked Sun if he had data of Vietnam nationals. Sun sent a file containing the personal information of 6,800 people including Vietnamese names, email addresses, mobile numbers and bank account numbers.
On Sep 13, Kong transferred 20,000 USD Tether (about S$26,200) to Sun to pay for the full database of over a million people.
However, the two Malaysians did not receive the data, as Sun had been arrested.
About 160 officers from the Criminal Investigation Department conducted simultaneous raids islandwide on Sep 9, arresting six men believed to be linked to the syndicate of “global malicious cyber operators”, the court heard.
Sun was arrested at a condominium along Bidadari Park Drive. He had a laptop containing computer programmes that could be used in cyber attacks.
Five laptops, six mobile phones, cash of more than S$24,000 and cryptocurrency worth approximately US$850,000 were also seized from him.
Police forensic investigations uncovered the Malaysia data WhatsApp chat group, to which Kong and Seow belonged.
On Sep 21, the two Malaysians entered Singapore for the Grand Prix and were arrested two days later when attempting to leave the country.
The prosecution sought at least six months’ jail each for Seow and Kong, noting the maximum jail term of three years, a fine of up to S$10,000, or both for their respective charges.
The prosecutors said the sample was simply “a mere subset of the full set of data that the accused persons purchased, being over a million persons”.
The offences were premeditated, with detailed tests conducted on a sample before finalising payment.
The offences were also “clearly committed in the context of a wider online gambling syndicate”, with the data intended for us for an online gambling operation, said the prosecution.
Seow’s lawyers, Mr Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Joyce Khoo from Quahe Woo & Palmer, sought a fine of around S$10,000.
They said Seow was “forced to resign” from his position as executive chairman at a software company as a result of the court proceedings, which is “in and of itself a disproportionate consequence of the present case and is sufficient punishment for our client”.
Mr Sudheesan said Seow is remorseful, and that he was introduced to Sun by Andy, an acquaintance. 
Seow did not know how Sun obtained the data and has never met Sun. He never opened the file Sun sent in the chat, and did not know what kind of personal information was included, said the lawyer.
Seow also had “no direct involvement in any online remote gambling operation whatsoever”, said Mr Sudheesan. He added that most of the communications in the chat were between Sun and Kong.
Kong’s lawyers, Mr Pratap Kishan and Ms Jasmine Yan from Kishan Law Chambers, similarly sought a fine for their client, saying he is “not a hardened criminal” but that this was a “one-off incident”.
Kong has known Seow for about 10 years, said Mr Pratap. Kong is the vice-president of Alphatel Global, a company in Kuala Lumpur that is in the business of telemarketing and telesales. On top of this, he runs other businesses in Malaysia and is a minority shareholder of a listed company there, Mr Pratap said.
Mr Pratap said Seow offered to assist Kong in his business and added him to the WhatsApp group chat with Sun.
He said Sun offered to sell Kong “leads containing contacts from Thailand” for the purpose of his business in Malaysia. According to Kong, “leveraging on purchased leads is the industry practice in Malaysia”, said the lawyer.
Kong accepts that it was “foolish of him” not to conduct checks to ensure that the leads by Sun were from legitimate sources, said Mr Pratap.
“The accused however reiterates that the transaction did not proceed as he did not receive any leads from Mr Sun after making the payment,” he said.
The two men will return to court for sentencing next week.
Sun’s case is pending, along with five other Chinese nationals and a Singaporean man embroiled in the case. Sun’s recent attempt for bail was rejected by the judge.