Bali Arrests 103 Foreigners In Major Cyber Crime Bust

Share The Article

Police in Bali have arrested 103 foreigners in a raid on a villa in Tabanan Regency in connection with a huge cybercrime operation.

The 103 foreigners are all believed to be connected to a cyber crime network and have been residing in Indonesia illegally and conducting activities that violate their visa conditions. 

Immigration authorities and the police conducted a raid as part of Operation Bali Becik on Wednesday, 26th June. In a written statement issued on Thursday morning, the Director General of Immigration, Silmy Karim, said, “Today the Bali Becik surveillance operation involving the immigration office in Bali succeeded in arresting 103 foreigners, there are 14 Taiwanese citizens, while the identities of the others are not yet known.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Direktorat Jenderal Imigrasi (@ditjen_imigrasi)

The arrestees have now been taken into custody at the Bali Immigration Detention Center for further processing.

Karim added, “Crimes committed by foreigners are one of the criminal acts that we often encounter in the field. With foreigner surveillance operations like this, immigration also supports the task force to eradicate online gambling.” 

Speaking separately the Director of Immigration Supervision and Enforcement, Safar Muhammad Godam, said that this bust stemmed from intel and information regarding suspicious foreigner activity at the villa. The bust was carried out at 10 am on Wednesday morning, and a total of 91 men and 12 women were arrested at the same property. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Kompas.com (@kompascom)

Images shared by the police show the arrestees having been gathered in the garden space of the villa, being made to lie face down on the ground with their hands over their heads. 

Godam told reporters, “They are suspected of not having documents and misuse of immigration permits, and currently, the possibility of cybercrime is being investigated based on the number of computers and cellphones found at the scene.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Direktorat Jenderal Imigrasi (@ditjen_imigrasi)

Officials in Bali have not given any indication that the 103 are in any way connected to the huge security breach on Indonesian government servers, including immigration servers, in the last week.

Cyber attackers have been demanding a USD 8 million ransom after a targeted ransomware attack on the national data center.

In total, 200 institutions across the country have been impacted, including immigration and other key public services. 

Indonesia has vowed not to hand over a cent of the ransom demands and have worked to secure their resources moving forward.

When the cyber attack first hit, there were immigration delays at both Bali’s I Gusti Ngurah Rai International Airport and Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport, though the delays have since subsided, and normal order has resumed.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, 25th June, regarding the cyber attack, the Director General of Immigration explained, “The digital immigration system used at Indonesia’s main airports and ports has been recovered since Saturday night (22/6/2019). Services such as immigration verification, autogate, visa, residence permit, M-Passport, and Online Cekal are running normally.”

They continued, “However, the passport system is still under control and is targeted to be restored today (24/6/2024). This disruption is caused by a problem at the National Data Center (PDN) of the Ministry of Information. Director General of Immigration, Silmy Karim, explained that his party moved the data center to a new location after a 12-hour disruption occurred as PDN showed no signs of recovery.”

The statement continued, “The removal of the data center and the activation of the immigration system took two days, from 20th June to 22nd June 2024. Silmy suspects that the disruption is not just a technical issue but also a cyber attack.”

“Therefore, data centers should be removed to restore public services and maintain the security of the country. He hopes PDN Kominfo will recover soon so that other public services that depend on the data center will not be interrupted.”

Karim said, “The public interest is a priority. The Immigration Engineer IT team works 24 hours a day to restore the system so that the people who want to leave Indonesia can be served well.”