Police have arrested 13 members of a Chinese call centre scam gang using Chiang Mai province as an operation base to swindle money from people in China.
Officers from the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), armed with a search warrant issued by the Chiang Rai provincial court on June 24, searched a pool villa in Doi Saket district of Chiang Mai and arrested 13 foreigners - 7 Chinese and 6 Myanmar nationals - for alleged involvement in a phone scam gang, CCIB commissioner Pol Lt Gen Worawat Watnakhonbancha said at the CCIB headquarters in Muang Thong Thani on Friday.
Seized from the premises were 94 mobile phones with Chinese SIM cards, 9 computers and a set of documents in the Chinese language.
The arrests followed an investigation into a group of foreign nationals allegedly working as a phone scam gang in Doi Saket district of this northern province. CCIB police had been assigned to monitor activities of people inside the pool villa. The officers later found that Chinese nationals lived in the premises, which were surrounded by fences and closed-circuit television cameras. Lights were always turned on at night, suggesting that scammers were working inside, said Pol Lt Gen Worawat.
Police then sought court approval to search the premises and found the 13 Chinese and Myanmar nationals were busy working inside a room, where there were one desktop computer, eight notebook computers, more than 90 mobile phones and Chinese documents.
The suspects admitted they were working for a phone scam gang to prey on victims in China. They were delegated tasks to swindle money from potential victims. They had 3 mobile phones each to lure the victims into investing in a long-term savings insurance scheme. Lists of victims’ names were sent to them via the Telegram application on their mobile phones.
The victims had been lured into giving their personal details to members of the scam gang. Information obtained from the victims was then passed to other gang members who were tasked with taking money from the victims' bank accounts, said Pol Col Bancha Srisuk, deputy commander of the CCIB sub-division 5.
Police initially charged the suspects with colluding in participating in a transnational crime organisation, illegal assembly, public fraud and putting false information into a computer system. All were held in police custody for legal action.
