FOUR persons were arrested by the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) Cybercrime Division for allegedly selling fraudulent Gcash or electronic wallet accounts.

Vicente de Guzman, NBI assistant for investigation, identified the suspects as Jay Cortez Orozco, Kevin Mark Maboloc Yong, Jeffrey Miguel Quimirit and Jeffrey Ilagan Barraca.

In a press conference at the NBI’s office in Quezon City on Monday, de Guzman said the four were arrested on a tip that they were using their Facebook accounts in their scamming operation.

He said the suspects operate in Quezon City and in Tondo, Manila, using Facebook’s messenger.

They convince their victims that they could collect P100,000 using fraudulent Gcash accounts.

Using an undercover Facebook account, the NBI contacted the suspects on how much they charge for a fake Gcash account.

Cortez was charging P900, Miguel P550, and Ilagan P650, de Guzman said.

Setting up an entrapment, NBI agents arranged to meet the suspects separately.

Cortez and Maboloc were arrested on March 20 in Matandang Balara, Quezon City.

Miguel was arrested in Tondo and Ilagan on March 21, 2023, on North Avenue, Quezon City.

Maricor Alvarez-Adriano, Gcash chief legal officer, said the micropayment service network had beefed up its security measures by installing GSave, a facial recognition software, to weed out suspicious accounts.

But the suspects were still able to penetrate the firewall, Adriano said.

Mabela Niala, Gcash public affairs officer, said scammers use phising to unlock an account, a method by which a user is tricked into revealing his One Time Password or OTP and Mobile Personal Identification Number or MPIN codes.

“So if you see a link [in text messaging applications] asking you to press it, then Gcash will notify the user that it’s not them,” she said.

Niala reminds Gcash users “not to give out their passwords, Pin code, MPIN or even their personal information.”

De Guzman said the NBI will work together with Gcash to help protect its clients from scammers.

The suspects were charged before the Quezon City Prosecutor’s office for violating the Access Devices Regulation Act of 1998.