By admin Kong sent the report’s findings to Sun in a group chat and began negotiating a price along with additional data.
Sun offered a discount. Kong said he also needed personal information about people in Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and asked Sun to let him know how many phone numbers he could provide.
During negotiations from August 21 to September 7, Kong and Seow simultaneously and privately discussed whether the data was worth Sun’s asking price.
On September 7, Seow asked Sun if he had the details of Vietnamese citizens. Sun uploaded a file containing personal information about 6,800 people, including Vietnamese names, email addresses, mobile phone numbers and bank account numbers.
On September 13, Kong donated US$20,000 in Tether (approximately S$26,200) to Sun to pay for the full database of over one million people.
However, the two Malaysians did not receive these details because Sun was arrested.
On September 9, the court heard, about 160 officers from the Department of Criminal Investigations carried out simultaneous raids across the island, arresting six men believed to be linked to a syndicate of “global malicious cyber operators.”
Sun was arrested at an apartment on Bidadari Park Drive. He had a laptop containing computer programs that could be used in cyberattacks.
He also had five laptops, six mobile phones, cash worth more than A$24,000 and cryptocurrency worth around A$850,000 confiscated.
Police investigation uncovered a Malaysian WhatsApp chat group to which Kong and Seow belonged.
On September 21, the two Malaysians entered Singapore for the Grand Prix and were arrested two days later while trying to leave the country.
COURT ARGUMENTS
Prosecutors had sought a minimum of six months in prison for Seow and Kong, noting a maximum prison term of three years and a fine of up to S$10,000 or both for the charges against them.
Prosecutors said the sample was simply “a subset of the full data set purchased by the defendants, which included more than one million people.”
The crimes were premeditated and detailed sample testing was carried out before the payment was finalized.
The offenses were also “clearly committed in the context of a wider online gambling syndicate” and the data was intended for us to conduct an online gambling business, the prosecutor’s office said.
Seow’s lawyers, Sunil Sudheesan and Ms Joyce Khoo of Quahe Woo & Palmer, had sought a fine of around A$10,000.
They said Seow was “forced to resign” as executive chairman of the software company as a result of the legal proceedings, which “is itself a disproportionate consequence of this case and constitutes sufficient punishment for our client.”
Sudheesan said that Seow was remorseful and that he was introduced to Sun by Andy, a friend.
Seow didn’t know how Sun obtained this data and had never met him. He never opened the files Sun sent in the chat and didn’t know what personal information they contained, the lawyer said.
Seow “was also not directly involved in any remote online gambling activity,” Sudheesan said. He added that most of the chat communications were between Sun and Kong.
Kong’s lawyers, Pratap Kishan and Ms Jasmine Yan of Kishan Law Firm, similarly asked for their client to be fined, saying he was “not a hardened criminal” but it was a “one-off incident”.
Kong has known Seow for about 10 years, Pratap said. Kong is vice president of a telemarketing and telesales company in Kuala Lumpur. It also runs other businesses in Malaysia and is a minority shareholder in a listed company there, Pratap said.
Pratap said Seow offered to help Kong with his business and added him to a WhatsApp group chat with Sun.
He said Sun offered to sell Kong “leads containing Thai contacts” to conduct business in Malaysia. According to Kong, “it is industry practice in Malaysia to use purchased leads,” the lawyer said.
Kong admits it was “foolish of him” not to conduct checks to ensure Sun’s tips came from legitimate sources, Pratap said.
“However, the defendant reiterates that the transaction did not take place because he did not receive any instructions from Mr. Sun after making the payment,” he said.
Both men will return to court for sentencing next week.
Sun’s case is ongoing, as are five other Chinese nationals and a Singaporean embroiled in the case. Sun’s recent bid for bail was rejected by a judge.