East Java police arrest man over fake WhatsApp accounts and gambling ad blasting service linked to Cambodia network

Police in Indonesia's East Java province have named a man from Sidoarjo regency a suspect over a business that sold WhatsApp and Telegram accounts registered with other people's identity data and a service that pushed online gambling ads to WhatsApp users in bulk.

The East Java Regional Police (Polda Jatim) announced the case at a press conference in Surabaya on Friday, October 30, 2026. The suspect is identified only by the initials DS. He faces allegations of electronic data manipulation, misuse of personal data and promoting online gambling, according to the force's public relations division.

Accounts registered with other people's ID numbers

The deputy director of the force's cyber crime directorate, Senior Superintendent Daniel Somanonasa Marunduri, said DS had run two schemes since 2023.

In the first, police said, he registered prepaid SIM cards using other people's national identification numbers (NIK) and family card (KK) numbers, created WhatsApp and Telegram accounts on them, and sold the accounts through Telegram. WhatsApp accounts went for Rp500 to Rp5,000 each and Telegram accounts for Rp1,000 to Rp3,000, earning him about Rp100 million, according to police.

Local news site detikJatim, reporting from the press conference, said investigators identified one sale of 647 personal WhatsApp accounts to a single Telegram buyer at about Rp600 per account. It identified the suspect by the initials DNS and said he lives in Krian district, Sidoarjo.

A self-built blasting site for gambling ads

From November 2025, police said, DS added an online gambling promotion service built on software he developed himself and ran from the website sengmanda.com. Customers sent him their promotional material and a list of target WhatsApp numbers, and the system sent the ads to those numbers automatically.

"According to the investigation, DS worked directly with the administrator of an online gambling network in Cambodia," the Indonesian National Police said in its English-language release. Police put the value of transactions in the business at Rp1 billion (about US$60,000).

Officers seized a custom-built computer, 13 mobile phones, about 6,000 SIM cards from the operators XL, Axis and By.U, bank statements and screenshots of transactions.

The case follows a Makassar police case in which three people were arrested over an SMS blasting network that promoted gambling sites.

Charges and next steps

Police said DS is being investigated under the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law, the Personal Data Protection Law and the gambling provisions of the Criminal Code (KUHP). The ITE Law charges carry up to 12 years in prison or a fine of up to Rp12 billion, and the other provisions up to nine years or Rp2 billion, Marunduri said. Under Indonesia's new Criminal Code, in force since January 2, 2026, offering gambling without a permit carries up to nine years in prison or a fine of up to Rp2 billion.

The force's cyber crime directorate has opened a complaints hotline and formed a special team to trace the assets of the suspect and the network involved. Its spokesman, Senior Superintendent Jules Abraham Abast, urged the public to be careful about handing over their NIK and family card numbers.

Police did not name the gambling sites promoted through the service or the Cambodian network.

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