7 Chinese nabbed for credit card fraud, bribery

SEVEN Chinese suspects in credit card fraud and bribery have been arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation.

NBI Director Jaime Santiago said the suspects were apprehended in Paranaque and Quezon City by operatives of the agency’s Cybercrime Division.

Santiago said the operation that led to the arrest of the seven stemmed from complaints filed by several individuals victimized by the suspects.

“These includes smishing, phishing, click-baiting, pretexting, whaling, and the likes, which resulted in unauthorized or illegal access and eventual utilization of their credit card credentials without their knowledge,” Santiago said in mixed English and Filipino in a press briefing yesterday.

He added that a group of foreigners belonging to a transnational organized crime group was cashing out money through credit card credentials drawn from their victims’ accounts, mostly offshore accounts

“In need of a Point-of-Sale or POS device to expedite the cashing out, the said group would then give their accomplices 20 percent of the amount upon conversion of the same into cash,” Santiago added.

Armed with this information, NBI agents pretended to possess the needed POS device and showed willingness to conspire with the suspects, later on agreeing to meet for the scheme to materialize.

NBI operatives hatched an entrapment operation last July 27 in Paranaque City that resulted in the arrest of two Chinese identified as Sun Jie and Lee Ching Ho.

When arrested, Sun tried to bribe the NBI operatives by offering them P1.5 million in exchange for their release and the dropping of the charges.

Santiago said Sun also told the NBI operatives that his associates were willing to raise the amount and bring it personally if they would be released.

“Our operatives rode along with the idea of bribery and hatched another entrapment operation. On the night of the same date, said associates agreed that the exchange would take place at the parking lot of the NBI Main Office in Quezon City,” Santiago said, adding that two vehicles arrived and another Chinese-looking individual got out of the vehicle and handed a bag of money to one of the operatives, and asked them to hand over the arrested