PUBLISHED: 28 Jun 2024 at 16: 33
Police have detained 13 users of a Chinese call center fraud group who are using Chiang Mai as their main procedure point to extort money from Chinese citizens.
According to CCIB commissioner Pol Lt Gen Worawat Watnakhonbancha, who was armed with a search warrant from the Chiang Rai provincial court on June 24, officers from the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB ) searched a pool villa in the Doi Saket district of Chiang Mai on Friday, and they detained 13 foreigners, 7 Chinese and 6 Myanmar nationals, for alleged involvement in a phone scam gang.
94 cellular phones with Taiwanese SIM cards, 9 servers, and a set of files in Taiwanese were taken from the premises.
The arrests came as a result of a probe into a group of foreigners supposedly working for a cellphone scam gang in the northeastern province of Doi Saket. CCIB authorities had been assigned to monitor the activity of visitors to the billiards villa. Afterward, the officers discovered that Chinese citizens were residing in the building, which was surrounded by fences and closed-circuit television cameras. Lights were usually turned on at night, suggesting that swindlers were working in, said Pol Lt Gen Worawat.
The 13 Foreign and Myanmar citizens were then searched by police, who discovered eight laptop computers, more than 90 mobile telephones, and Chinese files inside a room.  ,  ,
The suspects acknowledged that they were employed by a Chinese smartphone scam ring. They were given responsibilities to extort money from possible subjects. To entice the victims into purchasing a long-term savings plan system, they each had three cellular phones. The victims ‘ names were notified via the Telegram app on their mobile phones.
The subjects had been persuaded to give their personal information to scam artists. According to Pol Col Bancha Srisuk, deputy chief of the CCIB sub-division 5, information obtained from the patients was therefore passed on to other group members who were tasked with prying funds from the subjects ‘ bank transactions.
Initial charges against the suspects included engaging with a multinational crime organization, organizing illegally in public, and inputting phony information into a computer system. To pursue legal action, all were kept in police custody.