Jail for two men who obtained people's personal data illegally

A man engaged the services of an alleged accomplice to illegally obtain the personal information of others, as he wanted to use such data in an unlawful online gambling operation.

- Shaffiq Alkhatib

Malaysian Kong Chien Hoi, 39, then received from Chinese national Sun Jiao a file that contained the personal information of 9,369 unknown people.

Sun, 42, was allegedly linked to a global syndicate that conducted malicious cyber activities.

Kong's Malaysian accomplice, Seow Gim Shen, 42, also received the file. Seow later asked Sun if he had the personal data of people in Vietnam.

The court heard that Sun then sent the two Malaysians another file with the personal data of 6,800 unknown people.

Deputy public prosecutors Hon Yi, Cheah Wenjie and Shaun Lim stated in court documents: "Sun Jiao informed investigators that the personal information data was obtained through... other gambling websites to obtain their list of users and their personal information."

On Oct 24, Kong and Seow were each sentenced to 14 weeks' jail.

Each man had pleaded guilty to one count of being part of a conspiracy to illegally obtain other people's personal information.

The DPPs added: "Both Kong and Seow had reason to believe that the... personal information was obtained without the consent of the unknown persons, and they in fact believed that Sun Jiao could have stolen the personal information data."