inp.polri.go.id - Jakarta. The Indonesian National Police (INP)'s Cyber Crime Directorate has arrested five suspects in a phishing case involving SMS blasts containing fake e-ticket payments. This network was controlled by Chinese nationals.
The Director of Cyber Crime at INP's Criminal Investigation Unit, Brigadier General Himawan Bayu Aji, stated that the five suspects are WTP (29), FN (41), RW (40), BAP (38), and RJ (29).
"Investigators conducted further investigations and questioned the five suspects and discovered that this crime was directly controlled by foreign nationals from China," explained Himawan on Wednesday (2/25/2026).
Himawan explained that the suspects in Indonesia were accomplices who received and carried out orders from Chinese nationals using the Telegram accounts Lee SK and Daisy Qiu. The perpetrators from China directly sent SIM boxes (the tools used for blasting) to the suspects in Indonesia.
According to Himawan, the Chinese citizens controlled the perpetrators in Indonesia to install SIM cards into SIM boxes or modem pools. The system was then controlled remotely or automatically from China.
He explained that the suspects in Indonesia only needed to open an application called TVS (Terminal Vendor System). Through this application, he said, the suspects could monitor the number of successful and failed SMS blasts.
"In one day, the SIM box devices operated by the suspects were capable of sending phishing SMS to 3,000 mobile phone numbers. To operate the SIM boxes shipped from China, the perpetrators needed hundreds of SIM cards registered using Indonesian national ID numbers (NIK) and citizen data," he said.
He added that the suspects received a monthly salary in cryptocurrency, USDT, as compensation. It ranged from 1,500 USDT (approximately IDR 25 million) to 4,000 USDT (approximately IDR 67 million), depending on the number of SIM boxes operated.
"The commission was routinely exchanged into Rupiah every month," explained Himawan.
For their actions, the five suspects were charged under Article 51 in conjunction with Article 35 of Law Number 1 of 2024 concerning the Second Amendment to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions, and/or Article 45A paragraph 1 in conjunction with Article 28 paragraph 1 of Law Number 1 of 2024 concerning the Second Amendment to Law Number 11 of 2008 concerning Electronic Information and Transactions.
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