Crooks can run but they can't hide from the law in high-tech era: Cyber experts
It is much more difficult to hide from the authorities today given the ease of tracking of one's digital footprints.
Some criminals and suspects try to elude the law here by absconding, using forged travel documents or altering the way they look.
But eventually most will be caught, former senior police officers as well as cyber and counter-terrorism sleuths told The Straits Times.
The recent arrest of a couple - Pi Jiapeng, 26, and his Thai wife Pansuk Siriwipa, 27 - for their alleged involvement in a $32-million luxury watch and handbag scam suggests how it may be more difficult today to hide from the authorities.
Mr Mikko Niemela, chief executive of cyber-security firm Cyber Intelligence House, said that "unless a fugitive is willing to hide in a cave or jungle and not use electronic devices", tracking their digital footprint is usually easy.
"(For) the digital part of it, it just takes less than an hour," said Mr Niemela, who has done research for Interpol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and one European military organisation
"And then it's more a matter of logistics - when they (the police) can send somebody to make the arrest."
Mr Niemela has helped to track several people globally since 2015 through the use of sophisticated software, where "more than 90 per cent of the cases can be found in less than an hour".
The luxury-goods scam suspects became uncontactable and fled Singapore on July 4 in a container lorry. A warrant of arrest was subsequently issued against them on July 16. An Interpol red notice was also issued.
The Singapore Police Force said they had received information last Wednesday (Aug 10) from the Royal Thai Police indicating the couple could be staying in a Johor Bahru (JB) hotel.
They were arrested by Malaysian police that night as they were about to check into a budget hotel in JB. They have since been charged in a Singapore court for cheating and leaving the country illegally.
Mr Yaniv Peretz, managing director of Lorin, an international security consulting firm based in Singapore and Israel, said hunting fugitives involves the use of intelligence disciplines.
There is human intelligence (speaking to family members or sources), signal intelligence (mobile phone use) and open-source intelligence (Facebook or Instagram posts), he said.
"For each of these fields, the authorities will look for 'signatures' in order to build an intelligence picture about the case," said Mr Peretz.
Today, what investigators look for are electronic clues like credit card purchases, wire transfers, mobile phone calls and closed-circuit TV footage.
Tracking software also allows the authorities to detect fugitives who use burner phones or mobile phones that are not registered under the user's name.
Said Mr Niemela: "You can automatically detect the burner phones because they are not used for anything else other than short calls or messages and then they go offline.
"Intelligence services can then look at the messages and figure out if they are from the target they're seeking."
Sometimes, even minuscule details - like a photo taken on a mobile phone - can betray a fugitive.
The meta data on the photo can include geo-location information, added Mr Niemela, who cited how former tech billionaire John McAfee, who was wanted for tax evasion, was arrested a decade ago, undone by a photo that appeared in a magazine.
Tip-offs and close cooperation between regional police forces have also led to successful arrests.
Former police officer Iskandar Rahma fled Singapore after killing a father and son in Kovan during a botched robbery in 2013. He was later arrested by Malaysian police at a Johor Bahru restaurant.
A 2013 report in The New Paper quoted Bukit Aman's criminal investigation department director Hadi Ho Abdullah as saying the Royal Malaysian Police (RMP) had received "detailed information" from their Singapore counterparts.
Tan Sri Mohd Bakri Zinin, former deputy inspector-general of the RMP, told ST there have been many successful cooperation cases in combating crime in the region.
"We share information based on mutual understanding that police forces need to react (when receiving) any information on criminal matters," he said. "We don't tolerate any act of crimes by criminals who use other countries as their base."
But a few, such as convicted football match-fixer Wilson Raj Perumal, have managed to elude the law. He continues to live freely in Hungary after fleeing Singapore in 2010, by using another man's passport because the two countries do not have an extradition agreement.
Source: Straits Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission required for reproduction.
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