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JAKARTA - INDONESIAN police said on Tuesday they were working together with Malaysian authorities to bust a credit card and identity theft ring that has cost the country more than three billion dollars.
'We are working with the Malaysian police to locate Ong Seng Chye alias Simon Woon in connection with credit card forgery and identity theft,' national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira told reporters.
He said thousands of newly forged credit cards and the raw material to make more were found during a January drug and gambling raid on a Jakarta apartment in which eight people were arrested.
Six other people have since been arrested in connection with the case, Mr Nataprawira said, adding that Ong, a Malaysian national, was believed to be the mastermind.
He said the ring had been forging Mastercard and Visa cards, using identities stolen from both companies' databases.
'Seven thousand fraudulent cards were distributed throughout the country since 2002... the loss is estimated to be 30 trillion rupiah (S$4.58 billion),' Mr Nataprawira said.
The cards were sold for one million rupiah each using the group's drug smuggling and distribution network, Nataprawira. -- AFP
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