Justice Secretary Jesus Crispin “Boying” C. Remulla re-emphasized the DOJ’s mandate of upholding the Rule of Law and stressed that the same extends even in cyberspace.

This as the DOJ filed before the Taguig Regional Trial Court (RTC) charges against two former consultants of Coins.ph under the ownership of BETUR, Incorporated for hacking the company’s IT system stealing 12.2-million XRP amounting to a total PHP340,745,027.93-million.

Coins.ph is an entity engaged in remittance, transmittal of money, foreign currency exchange and other money transactions.

In an 8-page Resolution, the panel of prosecutors charged the respondents identified as Vladimir Evgenevich Avdeev and Sergey Yaschuck for violation of Section 4 (a)(1) of Republic Act (RA) No. 10175 otherwise known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012.

Complainant Coins.ph’s security team concluded that the malicious actor must have had a comprehensive grasp of its network infrastructure, secure access key protocols and server systems based from the recorded suspicious system logins.

Further, the respondents tried to swap and transfer the stolen funds through identified cryptocurrency services to obfuscate the origin/destination of money in an attempt to confuse investigators once their scheme is busted.

“It is the DOJ’s mandate to assure the Rule of Law is upheld at all times, and this extends even in cyberspace.” Secretary Remulla underscored.

“Cybercriminals seem to have employed ways to keep up with modern technological trends to exploit the innocence of our people. Despite the government’s unwavering efforts to weed out undesirable elements in cyberspace, it is always better to stay vigilant on our own at all times,” the Secretary emphasized. ###