Indonesian police arrest Mobile Legends cheat developer in cybercrime bust

An illegal Mobile Legends app that let players see enemy positions in real time was turned into a business, and it was costing honest players more than just ranked-star losses. Central Java police say the cheat developer, identified as DAR, 22, sold the APK through Telegram, paired it with login access on a server panel, and pushed it to both end users and resellers.

Investigators say the operation ran from 2021 through August 2025, long enough to become a real stain on one of Indonesia’s biggest mobile games. Police said the software was built by modifying third-party tools downloaded from the internet, then packaged for in-game use so buyers could load the cheat and get live enemy positions during matches. The suspect may have made hundreds of millions of rupiah from the scheme, while Moonton estimated its losses at more than Rp 2.5 billion since 2022.

The case started with a formal complaint from Shanghai Moonton Technology Co., Ltd.’s legal counsel on 3 December 2024, followed by a police report on 29 August 2025. From there, the Directorate of Cyber Crime at Polda Jawa Tengah carried out cyber patrols, profiling, and digital-forensics work that led to the arrest in Karanganyar. Police also said the cheat was marketed at different price points, from Rp 15,000 to Rp 270,000, which helped it spread beyond a small circle of players.

Moonton said the wider crackdown, carried out with Central Java police and SKC Law, targeted the operators behind Senpai Mod and its upstream supplier NUI Mod. That matters because it hits both sides of the supply chain: the production layer that built the cheat and the distribution layer that moved it into player hands. Moonton said community reports first flagged suspicious activity in ranked matches in September 2023, after which the company began technical monitoring and intelligence work. Several thousand MLBB accounts have already been penalized in connection with the network.

Polda Jawa Tengah said it is stepping up cyber patrols and warned that both cheat makers and users can face prosecution under Indonesia’s amended electronic-information law. For Mobile Legends players, the arrest is more than a cybercrime headline. It is a reminder that the fight over fair ranked matches now runs through Telegram channels, APK files, and server panels, and that the integrity of every queue depends on how hard those networks can be broken apart.