The Criminal Investigation Bureau has asked the Yunlin District Prosecutors’ Office to detain an individual surnamed Kuo (郭), who allegedly defrauded people using text messages sent via an international mobile subscriber identity catcher.
A local court has approved the request to detain Kuo and restrict visits, the bureau said yesterday.
Electronic Surveillance Division head Hsu Chao-pin (徐釗斌) said that an analysis of calls to the bureau’s anti-scamming hotline showed that it had received more than 30 complaints about phishing messages that claimed to be from E.Sun Bank and Far Eastern Electronic Toll Collection Co from September to November last year.
Photo: Wang Kuan-jen, Taipei Times
The suspects, who were based in China, tried to lure people into revealing credit card details and other personal information by claiming that they were processing failed eTag transactions in their names, Liu said.
The suspects used the credit card information they obtained to purchase goods on online platforms, defrauding people of about NT$3 million (US$98,270), Liu said.
The bureau assembled a task force to investigate the operation, finding that most scam messages were sent in October last year and that the recipients had not contacted the companies involved before receiving the messages.
That indicated that the scammers were using identity-catcher technology, a method that is relatively rare in Taiwan, Liu said.
The bureau sought help from telecoms to trace the messages, and the efforts yielded results within about two weeks, Liu added.
The bureau traced some messages to Kuo, who is suspected of sending them from a location near Zhongshan MRT Station in Taipei on Nov. 18, Liu said.
The bureau questioned Kuo, who told investigators that the China-based suspects had asked him to install a device to send phishing texts on a rented vehicle and drive around Taipei’s Zhongshan (中山) and Xinyi (信義) districts, as well as other densely populated parts of the capital, Liu said.
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