Former DAP Youth chief Teo Kok Seong today alleged that a well-funded rival had attempted to sabotage the Dapsy Youth wing elections by hacking the leaders' mobile phones and sending fake SMSes to members.

"The Dapsy congress held (on Nov 22) was marred by some negative elements, namely campaigning methods which were racist in nature and inflammatory.

"We believe there were unscrupulous external forces trying to sabotage or manipulate our internal elections. These actions originate from well-funded and organised outsiders," he told a press conference at Parliament lobby.

He suspected rivals had set up an International Mobile Subscriber Identity (Imsi-catcher), an illegal and fake telecommunication base station, to spread spoof SMSes.

"The fake base station will collect all the mobile phone numbers that try to connect to it. The mobile phone numbers collected by the fake base station are then targeted with SMSes designed to cause harm and division among DAP members," he said.

Through this device, he alleged, a number of SMSes were “sent out” by DAP lawmakers Liew Chin Tong and Ng Wei Aik without their knowledge.

The fake SMSes which DAP Youth identified were:

  • 'A vote to Yeo Bee Yin is a vote to Lim Guan Eng, nothing is impossible with the blessing of God'
  • 'Strengthen Chinese doesn't mean Indians and Malays should join DAP' and;
  • 'Malays want only status. Chinese grassroots were abandoned (by DAP), for the sake of Malays such as Dyana. Malays, go to hell.'

Beside spreading provocative SMSes to members, Teo, who is also Rasah parliamentarian, said inflammatory leaflets and banners were seen outside the congress venue.

Shadowing DAP polls

"DAP will lodge reports with the police and the Malaysian Multimedia and Communications Commission (MCMC) on the illegal operation of the IMSI catcher," he said.

"We will also invite MCMC to take proactive steps to be present at DAP's upcoming state election to monitor and bring the operator of this Imsi catcher system to book," he said.

"This was not the first time a DAP event has been targeted by Imsi catcher. The perpetrator who has been operating the illegal device has been shadowing DAP's state elections, namely in Perak and Selangor," he said.

"The same modus operandi was carried out by the perpetrator," said Teo, who relinquished his Dapsy chief post last weekend.

"The Imsi catcher system does not comes cheap. The most infamous of them all – Stingray-II – cost about US$135,000 in 2013," he said.

A Stingray is a false cell phone tower that can force phone in a geographical area to connect to it.