KUALA LUMPUR: Cyber crime syndicates have resorted to transactions using crypto currency or Bitcoin money to avoid detection by the authorities.
Bitcoin transactions would not leave money trail that could point to their destinations, compared to cash transactions where the amount could be recovered later.
The syndicates would send random emails to individuals and blackmail them by threatening to murder, leak personal information, expose extra marital affairs, report offences related to browsing pornography websites to the authorities, among others.
The modus operandi has put the Federal Police Commercial Crime Investigation Department on alert.
It has recently reached out to the public and reminded netizens of such syndicates through a post on one of its Facebook pages, Cyber Crime Alert Royal Malaysia Police.
According to the FB page, the suspects were able to obtain victims’ email addresses, done randomly, through spoofing before sending threats to them.
“In the email, the suspects would instruct the victims to transfer certain amount to Bitcoin Wallet Address given or risk having their secrets exposed on the Internet.
“Fearing this, the victims would transfer digital money to the account,” it said in an FB status.
It is learnt that the syndicate, known as cryptoblackmail, had the same motive as with the other cyber crime syndicates, which was to dupe victims by driving them to a state of panic and guilty.
The only difference is that the syndicate would ask victims to pay in crypto currency, where the destination of the money would go untraceable once a transaction is made.
It is more difficult for authorities to track down the Bitcoin Wallet Address owners.
It is a different story for online banking as the authorities are able to trace account owners who have received the money.