SINGAPORE – A man engaged three foreign hackers to come to Singapore to probe “sites of interest” for vulnerabilities, conduct penetration attacks and obtain personal information from the exploited systems.

Police arrested the trio – Chinese nationals Yan Peijian, Liu Yuqi and Huang Qin Zheng –

in an operation in September 2024

Yan’s laptop was later found to contain messages discussing vulnerable domains, which included five Australian, Argentinian and Vietnamese government sites.

Liu’s laptop contained a confidential e-mail between officers of Kazakhstan’s ministries of Foreign Affairs and Industry and Infrastructure Development.

The prosecution said that Ni-Vanuatu citizen Xu Liangbiao, 38, had earlier engaged the trio, but he left Singapore on Aug 14, 2023, a day before the Singapore authorities arrested offenders

linked to the $3 billion money-laundering case

On Nov 5, Liu, 33, was sentenced to two years, four months and four weeks’ jail, while Huang, 37, and Yan, 39, were each sentenced to two years, four months and one week in jail.

Each man had pleaded guilty to four charges including misusing a computer system and one linked to organised crime.

However, deputy public prosecutors Hon Yi, Cheah Wenjie and Shaun Lim stated in court documents that the organised crime group did not directly target Singapore.

Defence lawy...