A yearslong investigation involving police from Japan, Indonesia and Interpol cracked a cybercrime perpetrated in Osaka that used a phishing tool developed by a 17-year-old “genius.”

With the cooperation of Interpol, Indonesian National Police arrested Der Kalisna, 40, on July 9 on suspicion of orchestrating the use of stolen credit card information for illegal purchases.

The suspect is believed to have used the phishing tool called “16Shop.”

Back in 2020, Osaka prefectural police learned that someone had gained illegal access to a domestic cloud operator, according to National Police Agency officials.

Osaka police found the computer used in the cyberattack, leading to the arrest in August 2022 of a 39-year-old Indonesian man living in Kanagawa Prefecture.

The suspect was found guilty of using stolen credit card information to buy a computer over the internet in October 2019, and was given a suspended sentence.

The Japanese investigators learned that the stolen credit card information was provided by Der using the 16Shop phishing tool.

Having tied Der to the Osaka case, NPA officials began discussions with their Indonesian counterparts in December 2021.

In July, Indonesian police officers came to Japan to exchange information, which led to Der’s arrest in July.

Der is accused of using the 16Shop tool to make illegal purchases in Japan. He is believed to have had the illicitly bought products sent to the man living in Kanagawa as well as Indonesian students studying in Japan.

They, in turn, sold the illegally obtained products and sent cash to Der, according to the investigators.

Indonesian police said about 15 million yen ($105,000) was illegally taken from Japanese credit cards.

According to Interpol, the 16shop phishing tool was sold to about 70,000 people in 43 nations, but the platform selling the tool has since been shut down.

STUDENT SURPASSES TEACHERS

Interpol was also behind the November 2021 arrest of Riswanda Noor Saputra, 23, who developed the 16Shop phishing tool when he was 17.

In 2022, Riswanda was found guilty of falsifying electronic information to make it appear genuine. He was given a 30-month prison sentence and fined 500 million rupiah (about 4.7 million yen).

Investigators and his own lawyer called Riswanda a “genius.”

He was released on parole in April this year, and two days later, he was living at his home in Banjarbaru, Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo.

Riswanda’s father, a local civil servant, and his mother, a teacher at a computing school, bought their son his own computer when he was in the fifth grade.

When he entered junior high school, Riswanda took up programming because he wanted something more challenging.

He entered a specialized school to begin learning programming in a more structured manner, but he soon found the curriculum outdated.

School officials called his father and told him that Riswanda’s technology was beyond the level held by the teachers.

Around that time, Riswanda received a message on Facebook about the possibility of creating a program that could translate text depending on where it was sent from.

It took him a few months to create the program.

Internet users became aware of the program developed by the 17-year-old, and he received additional inquiries.

In 2018, he set up his own website to sell the program for about 8,000 yen.

He called his website 16Shop.

Riswanda said that at the time he did not know it was a crime to sell computer programs that could be used for illegal purposes.

“I just became so engrossed in programming because I loved the thrill of clearing new hurdles,” he said.

His revenues soon picked up, and he bought a used BMW and three motorcycles. His programming paid for his wedding when he was 21. He now has a daughter.

Neighbors began suspecting something was up because his expensive cars appeared out of place in such a common neighborhood.

According to Indonesian police, Riswanda earned about 16 million yen in profits from his programs.

Ironically, his programming skills were the main reason he was granted early release.

Prison officials had asked him to create a simplified computer calendar for reservations for prison visits.

Riswanda is now apologetic for the monetary damage his programs caused.

“In the future, I want to use my abilities to help as many people as possible,” he said.

(This article was written by Senior Staff Writer Shimpachi Yoshida in Tokyo and Naoko Handa in Banjarbaru.)