Seven arrested in SMS scam

JAKARTA: The city police managed to crack down on two groups of criminals who fraudulently used the short message service (SMS) to steal money from cellular phone users by telling them that they had won prizes from the service providers.

"We have arrested seven people from two different groups led by Marzuki and Latang respectively," city police spokesman Sr. Adj. Comr. Anton Bachrul Alam told reporters on Monday, as quoted by detik.com.

Two other suspects are still on the run.

Anton, however, refused to divulge details on how the police managed to expose the scheme, saying that there had been cooperation with Excelcomindo, one of the country's main cellular phone providers.

One of the groups had accumulated Rp 37 million (US$4,100) in its operation since March. --JP