SINGAPORE, Oct 25 — Two Malaysian businessmen were yesterday sentenced to 14 weeks in jail by a Singapore district court for conspiring with an alleged Chinese cybercriminal to acquire stolen personal data belonging to 9,369 people.

Seow Gim Shen, 42, from Penang, and Kong Chien Hoi, 39, from Selangor, pled guilty to one charge each related to the case.

“The data was paid for, and there had been further negotiations to obtain more data,” judge Christopher Goh was quoted by Singapore-based news outlet Channel News Asia (CNA) as saying during the sentencing.

He also emphasised the aggravating factor of the information being sought for online remote gambling.

The prosecution had recommended six months’ jail for each man, while the defence sought a fine of S$10,000 (about RM32,985).

The judge reportedly described the case as “less egregious” compared to other data breaches involving sensitive personal information like Singpass or NRIC details.

According to CNA, the personal data involved included names and phone numbers of primarily Thai nationals.

Seow first met the alleged cybercriminal, Sun Jiao, in a Cambodian casino in 2019.

He was informed that Sun had access to databases of personal information that could be sold to online gambling operators.

Seow introduced Sun to his friend Kong, who had a client in online gambling, unaware of Sun’s activities in Singapore.

The trio communicated through a chat group titled “Malaysian Data,” where they discussed purchasing the stolen information.

Kong initially expressed interest in acquiring data on Thai nationals, leading Sun to claim he had information on over a million individuals.

A sample file was shared with Kong and Seow, which included the details of over 9,000 people.

Subsequent testing revealed that a significant portion of the data was active, with a successful SMS delivery rate of 32 per cent.

Kong later sought additional information, including data from Vietnam, and transferred funds to Sun for the full database.

But before the data could be delivered, Sun was arrested in a police operation targeting the global cybercrime syndicate, in which he was supposedly a member.