DENPASAR: Indonesian police have arrested dozens on the popular resort island of Bali for allegedly running a love scam syndicate targeting American men, they said on Wednesday (Jun 11).
Police made the arrests after being tipped off about suspicious activity at a rented home in Denpasar, the island’s capital.
A total of 38 suspects, seven of them women, were arrested.
“The suspects arrested worked as operators whose job is to find the love scam victims; they targeted Americans who have a Telegram account,” Bali police chief Daniel Adityajaya told a press conference.
“They pretended to be women by using women’s pictures and fake identity to ensnare their victims.”
The suspects confessed they were working for someone who controlled the business from Cambodia to lure American men to hand over sensitive information, Daniel said.
They chatted up their victims through the Telegram messenger app and sent them fake links.
The suspects were paid US$200 each per month to steal the victims’ data and information, Daniel said.
Police initially detained nine suspects together, leading to the arrest of the others accused of a role in the syndicate.
The suspects, all Indonesians, face up to 12 years in prison if found guilty of violating the country’s electronic transaction law.
Police had previously said many scammers had moved to Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries after China cracked down on domestic networks.
In 2019, Indonesian police arrested 85 Chinese nationals and six Indonesians over an online scam that tricked victims out of millions of dollars.
In 2023, they arrested 88 Chinese nationals in Batam, in the Indonesian province of Riau Islands, for running a syndicate that had scammed hundreds of victims in China by luring them into sexual acts and then blackmailing them with video footage.
Many of the victims were public officials, police said.
