PIKIRAN RAKYAT – Head of Criminal Investigation of the West Jakarta Metro Police, AKBP Andri Kurniawan, said that an online gambling syndicate raided in Grogol Petamburan, West Jakarta on Thursday, July 4, 2024, had hacked a government website. They did this to advertise online gambling sites.

“The syndicate markets or advertises online gambling sites by hacking and changing the appearance of government and education websites,” he said, quoted by Pikiran-Rakyat.com from Antara on Thursday, July 11, 2024.

Andri explained that the syndicate chose sites with weak security protection, "They are looking for government-owned websites (with go.id URLs) and education (with ac.id URLs) that have weak security. Furthermore, the deface (change the appearance of the website) with content that contains gambling."

According to Andri, the raid started from a community report. The police also managed to arrest six perpetrators. After that, the police developed a case and arrested another perpetrator with the initials MHP (41). He is a man who owns an account to collect money from crime.

“From the results of the investigation, it was found that there were online gambling business activities operated by six perpetrators with the initials FAF (26), AE (39), YGP (20), FH (21), GF (21), and FAP (19),” he said.

The police also secured several pieces of evidence from the perpetrators. Until now, the police are still conducting further investigations related to the case.

“We have secured evidence and suspects. The confiscated evidence was six units of Central Processing Unit (CPU), six units of monitors, seven units of keyboards, six mouses, eight units of mobile phones, and three units of motorcycles,” said the police.

Illustration online gambling. Antara/Yulius Satria Wijaya.

In June 2024, the Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, Hadi Tjahjanto revealed that children under the age of 10 were also registered as online gambling players. At least, there are 80,000 people.

According to him, this number is 2 percent of the total online gambling players in Indonesia which amounted to 2.3 million people. On the same occasion, he also revealed the number of online gambling players from each age group.

"Then, between the ages of 10 years and 20 years, there is 11 percent of the data. It is said that more than 440,000, and the age of 21 to 30 years is 13 percent, 520,000, the age of 30 to 50 years is 40 percent, 1,640,000, age over 50 years is 34 percent, the number is 1,350,000," he said.

Description: The online gambling syndicate's activities underscore the urgent need for stronger cybersecurity measures. With children as young as 10 years old involved, the situation highlights the pervasive reach of online gambling in Indonesia, emphasizing the importance of regulatory and protective actions.*** (Politeknik Negeri Bandung/Sintia Yuliana)