BANGKOK, May 18 – The Thai authorities arrested three more men in connection with call scams which surfaced in the past week, and seized a large amount of equipment used in the international operation.
Police on Friday searched a house in Bangkok’s Ramkhamhaeng area after six suspects had been arrested at a supermarket on Thursday while they were withdrawing cash of Bt1.3 million, believed to be given to the leader of their gang.
Three persons arrested on Friday are Chinese, Taiwanese and Myanmar nationals. Twenty-three landline phones, two computer notebooks, two routers, four calculators and one surveillance camera were confiscated at the house.
Thai investigators collected evidence to forward to the economic crime division to work with the Chinese police. The syndicate deceived victims in China and Taiwan, causing losses of more than Bt100 million but there were no losses registered in Thailand.
The recent arrests of call centre scam syndicates were conducted under the cooperation of Thai and Chinese police. The suspects are both Thai and Chinese nationals. Thailand-based centres were set up to swindle victims in China and Chinese -based call centres were used to lure Thai victims.
To entice victims to reveal their personal information and transfer their money to the scammers’ bank account, the suspects told the victims by telephone that they had been implicated in a drug case and the police would help clear out all the incriminating data for their protection.
Thai and Chinese police on Thursday said they jointly arrested 10 Thais and two Taiwanese in a China-based call centre scam, luring victims in Thailand to transfer money to them in China.
Based in China’s Guangdong province, at least 150 persons were deceived by the syndicate, causing a total loss of more than Bt100 million. The suspects were arrested on May 9 and brought to Thailand for investigation.
A group of seven Chinese were arrested Thursday for involvement in a call centre scam at their residence in Chonburi, southeast of Bangkok.
According to police, the arrests were linked to previous call centre syndicate where 22 people were arrested in regard to losses worth over Bt200 million.
