Aizat Sharif
Thursday, September 15th, 2011 12:09:00KUALA LUMPUR: One was a civil engineer and the other an IT graduate.
But the two foreign students, with help from their accomplices, used their skills to con Malaysians of their money.
The duo — a Jordanian and a Sierra Leonne national — joined forces with a Pakistani and four locals in conducting a new financial fraud scam using the 'data phishing' techniques and 'hijacking' SIM cards of mobile phones.
How the scam works
1. The syndicate used a special software to download information from the Internet banking kiosk after the victim carried out a transaction. This is to obtain the latter's personal banking information, including handphone numbers.
2. Syndicate members then impersonated as telecommunication service providers' personnel and contact the victim, telling them their line would be disrupted for two hours for 'upgrading purposes'.
3. Masquerading as the victim, a local member of the syndicate would then go to a telco's branch with a forged police report and a copy of the victim's identity card to cancel the victim's original SIM card and obtain a replacement.
4. The new SIM card would be used to get the transaction authorisation code (TAC) to perform fund transfers via the Internet.
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