Malaysian credit card scam at US

Another interesting case of Malaysian hacking into US card scam is Gooi Kok Seng case

Gooi Kok Seng, age 44, arrested Jan 2010 is basically charged for following charges
- illegal possession of a data access device,
- illegal dealing in a data access device
- hacking into a computer
- consipiracy
- computer intrusion
- fraud
- identity theft

Below are brief introduction to Gooi Kok Seng case
- Gooi was a prominent member of a credit card fraud gang which had been operating in the US for the past three years.
- The group is suspected to have stolen credit card information from victims patronising restaurants and major department stores in the US.
- They then sold the data to organised crime syndicates in Asia who produced counterfeit credit cards.
- US Secret Service uncovered what was believed to be the largest hacking and identity theft case ever in the country involving 11 individuals.
- The 11 were charged in Boston and San Diego with three identified as US citizens, three from Ukraine, two from China, one each from Estonia, Belarus and Malaysia.
- The three-years probe uncovered the theft and sale of more than 40 million credit and debit card numbers from nine major US retailers.

Let's assume and analysis if the defendant is arrested and found hacking in Malaysia, in my opinion,

- The defendant will be charged under Computer Crimes Act 1997 that is misuse of computers to commit fraud and identity theft

- Under section 3(1), defendant is found guilty of Unauthorized Access because of his intention that cause computer to secure access to data in financial and national security, military sectors like banks and military transport systems, the access is unauthorized and lastly he had the knowledge to access to the network
- if guilty, he will be fine for amount maximum of RM50000.00 or to 5 years imprisonment or both

- Under section 4(1), defendant is found guilty of unauthorized access with intent to commit fraud by earning money through finding and exploiting network vulnerabilities or trading and selling the information contained and selling for example selling credit and debit card account numbers
- if guilty, he will be fine for amount maximum of RM150000.00 or to 10 years imprisonment or both

-  Under section 5(1), defendant is found guilty of unauthorized modification of contents of any computer. In this case defendant had taken victims credit cards information for counterfiet credit cards through modification of database
- if guilty, he will be fine for amount maximum of RM100000.00 or to 7 years imprisonment or both

- Under section 7(1), defendant gang is found guilty of aiding and abetting defendant to commit s3, s4 and s5 crime
- if guilty, his punishment will be the same as principal offender but cannot be more

For more details of Gooi Kok Seng case, please refer beow
Sample of Gooi Kok Seng Case

*Notes above texts is my comments