BANGKOK, March 28 – The Thai authorities Department of Special Investigation (DSI) on Wednesday arrested 22 Chinese and Taiwanese in connection with a call centre scam costing victims in Taiwan and China billions of baht in damages.
DSI Director-General Tharit Pengdit said the 22 suspects were arrested this morning at a rented house in Pak Kret district of Nonthaburi province as a result of an extended investigation of the arrest of a Chinese call centre scam gang.
The authorities seized items including computers, telephones, conversation scripts in Chinese and lists of victims’ telephone numbers during the raid.
The initial investigation found that, Mr Tharit said, the gang rented the house two weeks ago for Bt35,000 per month. They also installed internet-based long-distance telephones to lure victims in China and Taiwan to transfer money to them.
Mr Tharit said the suspects pretended to be bank officials or police, telling the victims to pay them to avoid legal action as their accounts were found to have linked with illegal acts.
The DSI chief said that total damages were estimated at billions of baht.
In another case, the DSI arrested Doroming Rohae, alias Abhisit Yuso, a prime suspect in a ‘rice pyramid’ fraud scheme which caused about one thousand victims more than Bt200 million in damages.
Earlier, the DSI arrested 15 suspects in the case which took place in the northern province of Chiang Mai since 2007. Mr Doroming, who played a key role in the scam by publicising and convincing the public to join the scheme, escaped arrest until he was recently apprehended in the Andaman coastal province of Krabi.
Since the arrest of the suspects in the rice pyramid scheme fraud, 798 court cases were filed and have been quickly proceeding against those charged. The maximum punishment for the offence is 20 years in jail.
