FBI appreciates Indonesian Police uncovering manipulation case through BEC mode

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has commended the Directorate of Cyber Crime at Bareskrim Polri for uncovering a suspected case of electronic information manipulation through a Business E-mail Compromise (BEC) scheme.

“Thank you, thanks to the firm action of the Indonesian National Police, we succeeded in recovering most of the funds stolen from an American victim,” said FBI Assistant Law Enforcement Attaché at the US Embassy, Son Nguyen, during a press conference at the Bareskrim Polri building in Jakarta on Wednesday.

According to him, fraud through the BEC scheme is not merely ordinary fraud, but a cyber threat that can damage public trust as well as the commercial and financial sectors.

“This is a sophisticated threat that actively undermines public trust, erodes stability in our commercial and financial sectors, and damages the rule of law,” he said.

Nguyen said the uncovering of the case demonstrates that law enforcement can still uphold justice even though cybercrime knows no national borders.

“When we align our resources, intelligence, and determination across national boundaries, we send a clear message that there is no safe place for those who exploit our shared digital financial economy,” he said.

Head of Sub-Directorate I of the Cyber Crime Directorate at Bareskrim Polri, Senior Commissioner Deddy Supriadi, explained that the perpetrator created an e-mail address resembling an official account in a sale and purchase transaction between Duro Machinery in China as the seller and IQ Power Tools in the United States as the buyer.

The perpetrator first hacked the buyer’s e-mail to learn about the computer hardware payment transaction between the two companies.

The perpetrator then manipulated the buyer into diverting the payment to a bank account in Indonesia that had been prepared to receive the proceeds of the crime.

As a result of the incident, the victim suffered a loss of USD 350,325.