College dropout held for hacking bank

MANILA, Philippines — A 21-year-old college dropout was arrested for hacking into a bank’s system and siphoning nearly P1 million from its client’s accounts, the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) said yesterday.

Kli Ban Agarrado was arrested at a condominium in Manila on Wednesday after four months of surveillance on a fake website and a complaint page on Facebook he created, NBI deputy director Vicente de Guzman III said in a press conference yesterday.

Agarrado dropped out from the University of San Agustin in Iloilo in 2017, where he was about to graduate with a degree in civil engineering, officials said.

Agarrado said that after dropping out, he worked for a call center in Iloilo, where he learned the bank’s system.

De Guzman said Agarrado created a fake website and sent links to the bank’s clients in order to induce at least 25 victims into revealing their bank details. 

Agarrado would then transfer funds from the bank’s clients into an account with a false name.

If the clients file a complaint through the fake website, it would lead them to a fake Facebook page Agarrado created, NBI cybercrime division chief Vic Lorenzo said.

Agarrado was charged with violating Republic Act 10175, the anti-cybercrime law, and RA 8484, the access devices regulation law.