TWO Nigerians and three Filipinos were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) for their alleged involvement in the recent cyberattack against BDO Unibank Inc.
The NBI presented the five suspects to the public during a press conference held Friday noon at the NBI headquarters in Taft Avenue.
According to Ferdinand Lavin, NBI spokesman and deputy director, the arrests of the suspects were a product of a series of “painstaking undercover operations” undertaken by the NBI’s Cyber Crime Division (CCD) under assistant regional director Victor Lorenzo.
Lavin said they have tasked the NBI’s international operations division to inform the Nigerian Embassy in the Philippines about the arrest of two of their citizens.
“The NBI would like to assure the public that it is the task of the government to bring back the stability of the financial institutions and the banking system,” he said during the press conference.
Lavin said the five suspects have undergone inquest proceedings.
BDO account holders in mid-December reported unauthorized transactions involving tens of thousands of pesos. In a virtual press conference, Lorenzo said the scam started from phishing, which eventually led to the accounts of clients being compromised.
According to NBI. the informant said the suspects provide access to “anyone looking for options to cash out funds fraudulently obtained.” The ranges from bank accounts, cryptocurrency wallets to point-of-sale terminals of legitimate merchants.
The informant also said he received a call from a certain “Mark Froilan” who later contacted Anaekwe, through his alias. The Nigerian suspect said he will provide the informant three different accounts for the transfer P10 million each “apparently referring to the funds from BDO alluded to by Mark Froilan.”
Anaekwe and Nwadi were caught in the act offering accounts for sale on January 18 in Mabalacat, Pampanga, NBI added.
NBI agents arrested subject Taupa on the same day in Floridablanca, Pampanga “for selling ‘scampage’ or phishing website.”
The bureau said another informant identified Taupa as one of the masterminds in the “Mark Nagoyo” scam who was selling scampages that imitate the looks of popular e-wallet app Gcash.
“Accordingly, Taupa modified the code in order to gather the log in details of unwitting victims who would access the scampage in the mistaken belief that they were opening Gcash’s official portal,” the NBI said.
It added that the owner of the phishing website would then be able to get into the victim’s Gcash accounts to steal funds from the said e-wallet.
