Terrorist-Funded Filipino Hackers Arrested

In a joint effort, US and Philippines authorities managed to arrest four members of a hacker collective that are suspected to have attempted a hack on AT&T.

The investigation that led to the arrest of the Filipinos started back in March when the FBI requested the aid of Criminal Investigation and Detection Group's Anti-Transnational and Cyber Crime Division (CIDG-ATCCD) concerning a hacking operation that targeted the wireless services provider AT&T.

The suspects, aged between 21 and 31, and allegedly financed by a Saudi Arabian terrorist group, caused damage worth of $2 million (1.4 million EUR) to the communications company, reports SunStar.

They were taken into custody after the FBI and the ATCCD raided several locations in the Metro Manila area, from where numerous computer and telecommunications equipments, believed to be used in the attacks, were sized.

One of the hackers, Paul Michael Kwan, was arrested before in 2007 as a result of an international operation led by the Bureau and Philippines authorities against terrorist organizations.

This is not the only reason why law enforcement representatives believe the four are tied to terrorist funding activities. ATCCD chief Gilbert Sosa claims that back in 1999 when the FBI was investigating a series of hacking operations that targeted telecoms companies, they uncovered a trail of banking records that linked local hackers to terrorists.

It turns out that the criminal organizations from Pakistan and India are also somehow connected, since in 2007, a Pakistani man suspected of funding operations in India, also supplied the necessary funds for the Filipinos.

This is a good example of a situation described in a previous article where we saw how law enforcement officials became aware of the fact that fraudsters are not necessarily geeks who hide behind their computer screens. Recent investigations revealed that in many cases they were tied to drug sales and some even had connections to outlaw biker gangs.