Brunei cracks down on int'l drug cartel
The local men were recruited as drug couriers smuggling drugs into Europe via Brunei's neighbouring country, NCB said in a press release on Thursday.
According to local daily Borneo Bulletin, those local men earned a total of 21,000 Brunei dollars (US$16,354) from smuggling Cannabis weighing 68 kg worth over a million Euros.
The NCB expressed concern over the troubling trend of Bruneians being recruited for drug smuggling activities and urged them to resist being swayed by the enticing offers from the syndicate. - Xinhua
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The Star
an hour ago
- The Star
Indonesia seizes record US$590mil in meth, uncovers maritime drug route in South-East Asia
JAKARTA: Indonesia is on track to record the largest seizure of drugs by the National Narcotics Agency (BNN) in six years, said the agency's chief, with confiscation of methamphetamine reaching 3.41 tonnes – with a street value of US$590 million – so far in 2025. This half-year haul has surpassed the total annual seizure in the previous five years. The latest raid in the waters off Batam in mid-May netted a record 2.1 tonnes of methamphetamine, a synthetic drug also known as meth. The amount can feed eight million addicts, with each gram typically consumed by four people. BNN confiscated less than a tonne for the whole of 2024, and between 2020 and 2023, annually netted between 1.2 tonnes and 2.8 tonnes, according to government data. Government agencies have also, so far in 2025, seized 2.65 tonnes of other drugs, such as marijuana and cocaine, with a street value of at least $95 million. In an interview on July 3, BNN chief Marthinus Hukom shed light on a drug-trafficking maritime route spanning Malaysia, the Philippines and Taiwan. 'The production was in Myanmar while the vessel was built in Thailand,' said Commissioner-General Marthinus, referring to the meth seizure in May. Large-scale production of meth, combined with an ongoing war in Myanmar since 2021, has driven up the supply of the illicit drug in South-east Asia, said a recent report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Seizures of meth across the region were at record highs in 2024, totalling 236 tonnes – a 24 per cent increase compared with the 2023 haul, said UNODC. Meth, a powerful and fast-acting stimulant, can harm a person's heart, teeth and brain if used regularly. It can also cause paranoia, mood swings and memory loss. While there has been a slight decline in drug prevalence in Indonesia, it is still at a worrying level. Marijuana and meth are the two most-used drugs, followed by Ecstasy, ketamine, cocaine and prescription drug abuse. The number of police cases involving arrests of drug offenders in the first 11 months of 2024 stood at 53,672 – up from 50,291 cases in 2023, and 44,983 in 2022, according to government data. Marthinus revealed that for the large meth seizure in May, the drugs had been loaded onto a trade ship in the Andaman Sea off Myanmar. The vessel, Sea Dragon Tarawa, then sailed south through the Malacca Strait to the waters bordering Indonesia and Singapore. It later turned into the South China Sea, cruising off Kalimantan to drop off the meth packages for the Indonesian market, he said. The ship then headed into Philippine and Taiwan waters to unload more drugs. It later looped back to go back into the Andaman Sea, with the trip made several times. It was during one of those regular trips that the ship was caught near Batam, after leaving the Malacca Strait. Data of the trips made was collected by BNN from the vessel's Automatic Identification System satellites. Noting that drug packages sometimes fall off a vessel during trans-shipment, Marthinus said: 'Small boats pick up merchandise from the passing vessel. In the past, local fishermen have found drug packages floating on the sea off North Kalimantan.' The drugs dropped off near Kalimantan were taken to Java and Sulawesi, among other places. According to BNN's analysis, the drugs normally enter Malaysia via boats from Sarawak's capital Kuching and the Philippines through Tawi-Tawi and Mindanao islands. Singapore was not on the delivery list of the Sea Dragon Tarawa. 'We have cut the trade chain for not only Asean countries, but also Taiwan. We expect the drug rings will change their route,' said Marthinus, a former head of Indonesia's anti-terror police squad Detachment 88. Meth in Indonesia is commonly consumed by labourers, plantation workers, drivers and nightlife workers, while marijuana is typically favoured by youth and students. Another synthetic drug, Ecstasy, is commonly used in nightclubs, said BNN. Maturidi Putra, a former drug addict who has been clean for 10 years, said: 'The cure is as simple as returning to the life we had before we became addicted. Avoid the people and environment that led us there in the first place.' The 51-year-old entrepreneur is among scores of people who have returned to a normal life without going through rehabilitation. Denny Bintang, 39, an anti-drug activist who started a 6,400-member Facebook group promoting rehabilitation and campaigning against illicit drugs, told The Straits Times that many addicts are unaware of government facilities that offer free rehabilitation services. 'Many are also afraid to come forward and use the service, thinking they will be arrested,' said Denny, noting there is low awareness that Indonesian law recognises some users as victims, not criminals. He also noted that privately run rehabilitation centres are expensive and not every addict or the family can afford it. The average retail price of meth in Indonesia in 2024 was about US$135 (S$173) per gram, according to UNODC. Prices vary widely across the region, with the lowest prices reported near Myanmar and rising in places farther away. The per-gram street price is US$6 in Myanmar, US$79 in the Philippines, and US$68 in Hong Kong, the UN agency said in a June 26 report. The May raid on the Sea Dragon Tarawa was the result of a five-month intelligence operation, Marthinus said. The six-member crew – four Indonesians and two Thais – were arrested, and 67 cardboard boxes, wrapped in plastic and camouflaged as green tea packages, were seized as evidence. Inside the boxes were 2,000 smaller packages of meth weighing a total of 2.1 tonnes. Similar to a terror network, drug ring leaders target people from poor economic backgrounds to help them expand operations as they are easy to recruit, said Marthinus. 'In the drug operations, they are the sales agents, couriers... We map out the regions in Indonesia that are prone to be recruitment centres. We do our work from there,' he added. Meanwhile, the total number of drug abusers remains a worry, even though the figure has dipped slightly. Indonesian government data shows drug users in the 15 to 64 age group totalled 3.33 million people in 2023, compared with 3.66 million in 2021. Yogo Tri Hendiarto, a criminologist at the University of Indonesia, told ST: 'Demand dictates supply. The large quantity of drugs confiscated this year suggests that demand remains strong in Indonesia and elsewhere, while the country's low prevalence rate indicates that prevention and rehabilitation efforts have been effective.' But he noted that the lower number of drug abusers could be due to weaknesses in survey methodology. - The Straits Times/ANN
The Star
4 hours ago
- The Star
Bringing 'Achilles' to heel: Portal claims Jho Low in China under fake Aussie passport, Greek alias
KUALA LUMPUR: Fugitive Malaysian financier Jho Low, the alleged mastermind behind the multibillion-ringgit 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB) scandal, is reportedly living in China using a forged Australian passport under a Greek alias, according to investigative outlet Brazen. He is said to be using the name "Constantinos Achilles Veis" on the fraudulent passport. The publication, co-founded by former Wall Street Journal reporters Bradley Hope and Tom Wright, who were pivotal in uncovering the 1MDB corruption network, claims Low is residing in a luxury neighbourhood in Shanghai. Responding to the report, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) issued a statement warning that passport fraud is a serious offence under Australian law. 'The Australian Passport Office specialist investigators and intelligence officers assess every allegation of fraudulent use of Australian passports,' a DFAT spokesman said. The use of a false Australian passport is an offence under that country's passport legislation, with convicted offenders facing up to 10 years' jail, or a fine of up to A$330,000 (about RM910,500), or both. DFAT added that it could not comment on individual cases because of privacy laws. Low, who has consistently denied wrongdoing, is wanted by multiple jurisdictions, including Malaysia, the United States and Singapore, for his role in siphoning an estimated US$4.5bil (RM21bil) from the sovereign wealth fund. Former prime minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak has been in prison since 2022 after being convicted of corruption and money laundering linked to the scandal. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim responded cautiously to the latest claims, saying he "we have no information, we are yet to receive anything." "Let me check. I've read [the media reports]. I need to verify with the home minister,' he was quoted as saying by Bernama. The Brazen report also comes amid long-standing international efforts to bring Low to justice. In 2019, the US Department of Justice reached a settlement with him to recover US$1bil, but he remains a wanted man. Authorities previously seized the superyacht Equanimity, which was allegedly purchased with stolen 1MDB funds. The vessel was later sold for US$126mil, and the proceeds returned to Malaysia. The use of forged Australian passports has raised concerns in the past. In 2010, Australia expelled an Israeli diplomat after Mossad agents used fake Australian documents in an assassination operation. To enhance document security, Australia introduced the R Series passport in 2023, which DFAT says has advanced security features to deter counterfeiting and forgery.
The Star
5 hours ago
- The Star
Microsoft rushes to stop hackers from wreaking global havoc
Hackers exploited a security flaw in common Microsoft Corp software to breach governments, businesses and other organisations across the globe and steal sensitive information, according to officials and cybersecurity researchers. Microsoft over the weekend released a patch for the vulnerability in servers of the SharePoint document management software. The company said it was still working to roll out other fixes after warnings that hackers were targeting SharePoint clients, using the flaw to enter file systems and execute code. Multiple different hackers are launching attacks through the Microsoft vulnerability, according to representatives of two cybersecurity firms, CrowdStrike Holdings, Inc. and Google's Mandiant Consulting. Hackers have already used the flaw to break into the systems of national governments in Europe and the Middle East, according to a person familiar with the matter. In the US, they've accessed government systems, including ones belonging to the US Department of Education, Florida's Department of Revenue and the Rhode Island General Assembly, said the person, who spoke on condition that they not be identified discussing the sensitive information. Representatives of the Department of Education and Rhode Island legislature didn't respond to calls and emails seeking comment Monday. A Florida Department of Revenue spokesperson, Bethany Wester Cutillo, said in an email that the SharePoint vulnerability is being investigated "at multiple levels of government' but that the state agency "does not comment publicly on the software we use for operations.' The hackers also breached the systems of a US-based health-care provider and targeted a public university in Southeast Asia, according to a report from a cybersecurity firm reviewed by Bloomberg News. The report doesn't identify either entity by name, but says the hackers have attempted to breach SharePoint servers in countries including Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK and the US. The firm asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the information. In some systems they've broken into, the hackers have stolen sign-in credentials, including usernames, passwords, hash codes and tokens, according to a person familiar with the matter, who also spoke on condition that they not be identified discussing the sensitive information. "This is a high-severity, high-urgency threat,' said Michael Sikorski, chief technology officer and head of threat intelligence for Unit 42 at Palo Alto Networks Inc. "What makes this especially concerning is SharePoint's deep integration with Microsoft's platform, including their services like Office, Teams, OneDrive and Outlook, which has all the information valuable to an attacker,' he said. "A compromise doesn't stay contained-it opens the door to the entire network.' Tens of thousands - if not hundreds of thousands - of businesses and institutions worldwide use SharePoint in some fashion to store and collaborate on documents. Microsoft said that attackers are specifically targeting clients running SharePoint servers from their own on-premise networks, as opposed to being hosted and managed by the tech firm. That could limit the impact to a subsection of customers. A Microsoft spokesperson declined to comment beyond an earlier statement. "It's a dream for ransomware operators,' said Silas Cutler, a researcher at Michigan-based cybersecurity firm Censys. He estimated that more than 10,000 companies with SharePoint servers were at risk. The US had the largest number of such firms, followed by the Netherlands, the UK and Canada, he said. The breaches have drawn new scrutiny to Microsoft's efforts to shore up its cybersecurity after a series of high-profile failures. The firm has hired executives from places like the US government and holds weekly meetings with senior executives to make its software more resilient. The company's tech has been subject to several widespread and damaging hacks in recent years, and a 2024 US government report described the company's security culture as in need of urgent reforms. The Center for Internet Security, which operates a cybersecurity information sharing system for state and local governments in the US, found more than 1,100 servers that are at risk from the SharePoint vulnerability, said Randy Rose, the organization's vice president of security operations and intelligence. Rose said more than 100 were likely hacked. The Washington Post reported that the breach had affected US federal and state agencies, universities, energy companies and an Asian telecommunications company, citing state officials and private researchers. Eye Security was the first to identify that attackers were actively exploiting the vulnerabilities in a wave of cyberattacks that began on Friday, said Vaisha Bernard, the company's chief hacker and co-owner. Eye Security said the vulnerability allows hackers to access SharePoint servers and steal keys that can let them impersonate users or services even after the server is patched. It said hackers can maintain access through backdoors or modified components that can survive updates and reboots of systems. The SharePoint vulnerabilities, known as "ToolShell,' were first identified in May by researchers at a Berlin cybersecurity conference. In early July, Microsoft issued patches to fix the security holes, but hackers found another way in. "There were ways around the patches,' which enabled hackers to break into SharePoint servers by tapping into similar vulnerabilities, said Bernard. "That allowed these attacks to happen.' The intrusions, he said, were not targeted and instead were aimed at compromising as many victims as possible. After scanning about 8,000 SharePoint servers, Bernard said he has so far identified at least 50 that were successfully compromised. He declined to identify the identity of organizations that had been targeted, but said they included government agencies and private companies, including "bigger multinationals.' The victims were located in countries in North and South America, the EU, South Africa, and Australia, he added. – Bloomberg
