SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The United States Department of Justice (DOJ) said a Chinese national was arrested in an international operation on charges of creating and using malware that was used in cyber attacks, large-scale fraud and child exploitation.
Singapore’s Straits Times newspaper reported on Thursday that the man, 35-year-old Wang Yunhe, was arrested in the city-state on May 24.
The Department of Justice said in a statement dated May 29 that Wang and unnamed others allegedly “created and disseminated malware to compromise and amass a network of millions of residential Windows computers worldwide”.
From 2018 until July 2022, Wang received $99 million from sales of the hijacked proxied IP addresses either in cryptocurrency or fiat currency, the DOJ said.
“Wang used the illicitly gained proceeds to purchase real property in the United States, St. Kitts and Nevis, China, Singapore, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates,” the DOJ statement said.
It said Wang’s assets and properties included sports cars, more than a dozen domestic and international bank accounts, over two dozen cryptocurrency wallets, luxury watches and 21 properties across several countries.
(Reporting by Xinghui Kok; Editing by John Mair)
