Taiwan police have broken up a homegrown tech team that built slick fake investment sites for offshore scam operations, a win for investigators but a warning that scam sites are now professionally made.

• Two brothers with IT skills built apps for government agencies and clinics by day, and ran a side team designing scam websites.
• In a year and a half they made 40 fake sites offering crypto and gold investments, pulling in more than 282 victims and over NT$100 million in losses.
• The fake sites were custom-built to show high phony returns, which is what lured people in.
• The overseas scam centers paid the team its commissions in crypto, and the group cleared close to NT$10 million.
• Police ran three rounds of raids, arrested five people including testers and designers, and seized cash, laptops, phones, and a cash counter; the brothers are being held.

Outlook: Prosecutors in Shilin are building the case on fraud, money laundering, and organized crime charges, and police are expected to keep tracing the offshore operators who hired the team.