8 November 2023 at 15:31PUBLISHED
Four men—two Taiwanese and two Japanese—have been detained by police on suspicion of operating a telephone fraud that cost 9.5 billion ringgit in less than two years, defrauding about 17,500 victims in Japan.
Callers posing as bank employees and police informed the victims that a data leak had compromised their accounts and that they may move their money to” safe accounts” set up by the con artists.
Police claimed that the two Japanese were the gang’s rulers, but they only identified them as Zhen, 50, and He, 40. The calls were made by their Asian partners, Daisuke, 49, and Taro, 41.
The two Chinese and one of the Chinese suspects were detained at two nearby homes in a casing house in the Samut Sakhon state, according to Pol Col. Rathachote Chotikhun, deputy chief inspector for the Immigration Bureau, who spoke with reporters on Wednesday. The other Asian male was detained in the province of Krabi.
He did not say when.
The two Asian used one of the two houses as a call center, according to Pol Col. Rathachote, while the Chinese suspects resided in the other.
11 mobile telephones, two laptop computers, Chinese contact details, and five cash and credit cards that were discovered at the two homes were all taken as evidence by the police.
The two Japanese callers allegedly received 10 % of the victims ‘ stolen money in addition to receiving 200, 000 yen ( roughly 47,000 baht ) per month.
According to Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy national police chief, the gang defrauded its patients in Japan of about 9.5 billion baht ( about 40 million yen ) in less than two years.