Cyber 'kingpin' nabbed; Suspect used global syndicate to fleece online bank accounts.(News)

BYLINE: Lee Rondganger

A 3G card, a laptop and a cellphone. This was all a South African man needed to run an international online banking-fraud syndicate which siphoned millions of dollars from people's bank accounts.

But it was the very same laptop and cellphone that led a multi-agency force - including the Scorpions, Standard Bank and a UK security consultancy firm - to 28-year-old Abdul Malik Parker's flat in Tygervalley, Cape Town, where he was arrested.

Parker has since been linked to 120 incidents of online fraud affecting clients of all of South Africa's major banks. Hundreds of international banking clients in the UK, France, Sweden and Australia have also allegedly fallen victim to the syndicate.

Parker, who is said to be the head of the African operation for the syndicate, was arrested on October 6 by the Scorpions who raided his flat by tracking the signal on his 3G data card. He has been described as a "high flyer" who wears expensive clothes, drives a latest-model Mercedes-Benz and owns a R700 000 flat on the Cape Town waterfront.

The Star has also learnt that Parker has two previous convictions: one for diamond smuggling and another for fraud.

When he was arrested, he was found with R20 000 in cash. He appeared in court on October 9 and was released on R20 000 bail. He is under house arrest.

This is the first time that a person has been arrested in South Africa for defrauding multiple banks by using the Internet.

Authorities are hailing the arrest as a major breakthrough in cyber crime and say they are now closing in on the other members of the international syndicate.

Advocate Gerhard Nel, head of the Scorpions in Gauteng, said the elite crime-busting unit was now going after syndicate members based in eastern Europe, the US and Russia.

"This is a major breakthrough for us, but we really need to get the other big role-players. We will be tracking them to wherever they are hiding in the world," he said.

The arrest has been the culmination of six months of investigation which started after a Standard Bank client reported that money had been transferred from his account to another without his knowledge.

According to the bank, their client had apparently used an Internet cafA(c) in Pretoria, where hackers used PC spyware to steal his log-in details, card number and PIN.

The bank then got its Internet security team to determine how the client's details had been compromised. They found his details had, in fact, been passed on to a computer server in Estonia in northern Europe.

They were then able to gain access to the Estonian server, where they found bank account details of hundreds of people - including South Africans. Most of the South Africans had used Internet cafA(c)s in Joburg, Pretoria and Cape Town.

Parker is alleged to have gained access to the server in Estonia, where the syndicate provided him with the people's banking details. He allegedly used this information to log in to their accounts and transfer money to various local accounts.

After withdrawing the money from the local accounts, Parker allegedly transferred some of the money to another syndicate member in St Petersburg, Russia.

"When we realised what was going on we decided to get the Scorpions involved," said Herman Singh, director of architecture and technology engineering at Standard Bank.

"We also decided to call the other banks and warn them that we had found their clients' details on the Estonian server," he said.

Singh, together with colleague Pat Pather, who is head of IT security at the bank, enlisted an expert from the SA National Defence Force, who deals with electronic warfare, to help them crack the case.

As the investigation unfolded, they realised that Parker was using a Vodacom 3G data card to operate the scam. The cellphone company helped them to pinpoint the area in which he was operating.

On October 3 the team flew to Cape Town and, using technology supplied by the UK firm, started tracing Parker.

The team used information they gained on Parker, such as his log-in times, phone billing records and a geo-location device to trace him.

"In three days we drove 1 000 kilometres in the Cape Town CBD trying to find him. But on the 6th (of October) he logged on to his computer and we were able to trace him right to the front door of his flat," Pather said.

When they arrested him, in addition to his laptop, investigators found three cellphones and 20 SIM cards in his flat.

Parker is said to be co-operating with the Scorpions in the investigation and will appear in court again at the end of the month.

Standard Bank reckons that had Parker not been arrested, the syndicate could have siphoned more that R100-million from people's bank accounts.

"Cyber criminals are never arrested because they use the Internet under the cloak of anonymity, and they could be anywhere in the world.

"This is why this case has been such a breakthrough, not just in South Africa but for the rest of the world," Singh said.