Indonesian police, FBI tackle cybercrimes

JAKARTA: Indonesian National Police (Polri) and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have agreed to join hands in fighting cybercrimes.

This follows a meeting between the Polri Cyber Crime Directorate and the FBI Cyber Division in Washington DC on Nov 30, according to the Antara news agency.

The Indonesian delegation was led by Cyber Crime director Brigadier-General Asep Edi Suheri. They were accompanied by officials from the Law and Human Rights Ministry.

Asep said discussions were held to explore and expand possible collaborations in handling cybercrimes in Indonesia, the US, or other countries whose nationals are implicated in the crimes, either as suspects or victims.

“We discussed the arrangement for investigating international cybercrime networks that involve criminal actors from multiple countries,” he said in a statement.

Besides sharing information regarding each division’s role in investigating hacking cases, the officials also discussed cyber threats encountered in their countries, he said.

Asep also revealed that they had also spoken about the success of an investigation into an international case with links in the US, particularly Washington DC and New York, as well as Indonesia.

“We discussed the successful cybercrime investigation that led to arrest of suspects implicated in trading hacking tools used to bypass and hack international startup application user accounts.”

The investigation revealed that the hacking tools had been used to target 70,000 user accounts in 43 countries, with total losses pegged at 27 billion rupiah, he said.

“The ongoing investigation could unravel more victims and financial losses from the cybercrime scheme. We have been assisted by local FBI forces and the Indonesian Consulate General in coordinating the Cyber Crime Directorate investigation,” Asep added.