‘Anyone would let their guard down’: 62-year-old man loses more than S$40,000 in CPF savings to malware scam
After communicating back and forth on WhatsApp, Mr Ang told the scammer he wanted to give up buying the seafood and go to sleep as it was about 11pm.
“He said ‘No problem, the S$5 is in, I’ll definitely send you the goods. You can just pay for the seafood when it arrives,’” Mr Ang continued.
MULTIPLE TRANSFERS THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT
“After that, I thought I was very clever. I went into my phone settings to try and restrict the permissions for the app that was downloaded into my phone, and I thought everything would be fine.”
He also tried deleting the app, but did not succeed.
When he woke up at about 6am the next morning, he discovered multiple messages from DBS, indicating that a bunch of transfers had been made from his account throughout the night.
Each transfer was not more than S$5,000, and there were more than 10 transactions made via PayNow between 1.30am to 4.30am.
“I quickly called the bank to check if it’s true that a lot of money was transferred out of my account. I asked if there was still money in my account, and they said I still had about S$10,000 inside,” Mr Ang said in Mandarin.
“So I thought, actually I have around that amount in my account. So something was not quite right, since it didn’t seem like there was any money that got transferred out.”
He asked the bank to block his bank account, and they suggested he make a police report. He went to Bedok Police Station to do so on Jun 1.
The investigation officer later called him to ask for a more detailed statement from his bank and that was when Mr Ang found out that the scammer had transferred more than S$40,000 from his CPF account to his bank account, and then transferred it out.
“At that moment, I was very heartbroken. Why did the money just disappear without reason?” he added.
Unlike in other scams, the scammer did not ask for any passwords or essential login information, which is part of why Mr Ang did not think anything was amiss.
He also did not realise that the money had been transferred out from his CPF account because he could only see the notification about the transfer in the CPF app and his email.
“But if you don’t take note of this, I can’t be checking my CPF account or email every second of the day. I don’t think I go into my CPF app more than once a year.”
He also made the mistake of writing down his passwords and other login details in a note-taking app on his phone, he shared.
“Maybe that’s how they found my details,” he added, stressing that others should learn from his mistake.
“We all have a lot of passwords these days. If you use an easy password, you’re scared they’ll be able to guess it. But if you use a lot of passwords, you really can’t remember them all and have to check every time you use it,” he said with a chuckle.
Reflecting on his experience, Mr Ang cautioned older people: “What we learned last time can’t beat the scammers of today. They’ve developed a lot.
“The best defence is not touching these online things at all. You can look at it, but don’t get sucked in. We often think about other scams in the media, and after you hear about it a lot, you feel numb to it. But when you meet it, the way each scammer operates is different, so you might fall for it.”
ONLINE USERS CAN BE BETTER PROTECTED
He also hopes that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, as well as banks, can come up with more safety measures to deter scammers.
“On the bank’s side, the settings are very easy to change. I’ve tried it before. Once I decide to transfer the money, the money goes out,” he added.
“After the money goes out, the bank notifies you about the transfer. But at that point, the money has been transferred, so you can’t get it back. I hope the bank can consider this when putting safety measures in place.”
While additional confirmation or verification measures may be more troublesome, it could be safer for users, he added.
‘Anyone would let their guard down’: 62-year-old man loses over S$40,000 in CPF savings to malware scam
After communicating back and forth on WhatsApp, Mr Ang told the scammer he wanted to give up buying the seafood and go to sleep as it was about 11pm.
“He said ‘No problem, the S$5 is in, I’ll definitely send you the goods. You can just pay for the seafood when it arrives,’” Mr Ang continued.
MULTIPLE TRANSFERS THROUGHOUT THE NIGHT
“After that, I thought I was very clever. I went into my phone settings to try and restrict the permissions for the app that was downloaded into my phone, and I thought everything would be fine.”
He also tried deleting the app, but did not succeed.
When he woke up at about 6am the next morning, he discovered multiple messages from DBS, indicating that a bunch of transfers had been made from his account throughout the night.
Each transfer was not more than S$5,000, and there were more than 10 transactions made via PayNow between 1.30am and 4.30am.
“I quickly called the bank to check if it’s true that a lot of money was transferred out of my account. I asked if there was still money in my account, and they said I still had about S$10,000 inside,” Mr Ang said in Mandarin.
“So I thought, actually I have around that amount in my account. So something was not quite right, since it didn’t seem like there was any money that got transferred out.”
He asked the bank to block his bank account, and they suggested he make a police report. He went to Bedok Police Station to do so on Jun 1.
The investigation officer later called him to ask for a more detailed statement from his bank and that was when Mr Ang found out that the scammer had transferred more than S$40,000 from his CPF account to his bank account, and then transferred it out.
“At that moment, I was very heartbroken. Why did the money just disappear without reason?” he added.
Unlike in other scams, the scammer did not ask for any passwords or essential login information, which is part of why Mr Ang did not think anything was amiss.
He also did not realise that the money had been transferred out from his CPF account because he could only see the notification about the transfer in the CPF app and his email.
“But if you don’t take note of this, I can’t be checking my CPF account or email every second of the day. I don’t think I go into my CPF app more than once a year.”
He also made the mistake of writing down his passwords and other login details in a note-taking app on his phone, he shared.
“Maybe that’s how they found my details,” he added, stressing that others should learn from his mistake.
“We all have a lot of passwords these days. If you use an easy password, you’re scared they’ll be able to guess it. But if you use a lot of passwords, you really can’t remember them all and have to check every time you use it,” he said with a chuckle.
Reflecting on his experience, Mr Ang cautioned older people: “What we learned last time can’t beat the scammers of today. They’ve developed a lot.
“The best defence is not touching these online things at all. You can look at it, but don’t get sucked in. We often think about other scams in the media, and after you hear about it a lot, you feel numb to it. But when you meet it, the way each scammer operates is different, so you might fall for it.”
ONLINE USERS CAN BE BETTER PROTECTED
He also hopes that social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, as well as banks, can come up with more safety measures to deter scammers.
“On the bank’s side, the settings are very easy to change. I’ve tried it before. Once I decide to transfer the money, the money goes out,” he added.
“After the money goes out, the bank notifies you about the transfer. But at that point, the money has been transferred, so you can’t get it back. I hope the bank can consider this when putting safety measures in place.”
While additional confirmation or verification measures may be more troublesome, it could be safer for users, he added.
Metaâs Threads in Twitterâs crosshairs
The launch of social media app Threads as a competitor to Twitter is a game-changer.
Meta, which also owns Facebook and Instagram, launched the new platform yesterday, ahead of schedule. Threads was welcomed almost immediately – especially by hordes of Twitter users that have watched in dismay as their beloved platform crumbles in the hands of Elon Musk.
In less than 24 hours, Threads attracted some 30 million users. And with Meta already having more than two billion Instagram users who can directly link their accounts to it, Threads’ user base will grow fast.
With its simple black and white feed, and features that let you reply, love, quote and comment on other people’s “threads”, the similarities between Threads and Twitter are obvious.
The question now is: will Threads be the one that finally unseats Twitter?
We’ve been here before
In October of last year, Twitter users looked on helplessly as Elon Musk became CEO. Mastodon was the first “escape plan.” But many found its decentralized servers difficult and confusing to use, with each one having very different content rules and communities.
Many Twitter fans created “back up” Mastodon accounts in case Twitter crashed, and waited to see what Musk would do next. The wait wasn’t long. Platform instability and outages became common as Musk started laying off Twitter staff (he has now fired about 80% of Twitter’s original workforce).
Shortly after, Musk horrified users and made headlines by upending Twitter’s verification system and forcing “blue tick” holders to pay for the privilege of authentication. This opened the door for account impersonations and the sharing of misinformation at scale. Some large corporate brands left the platform, taking their advertising dollars with them.
Musk also labeled trusted news organizations such as the BBC as “state-owned” media, until public backlash forced him to retreat. More recently, he started limiting how many tweets users can view and announced that TweetDeck (a management tool for scheduling tweets) would be limited to paid accounts.
Twitter users have tried several alternatives, including Spoutible and Post. Bluesky, which came from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, is gaining ground – but its growth has been limited due to its invitation-only registration process.
Nothing had quite captured the imagination of Twitter followers … until now.
Community is the key to success
Before Musk’s reign, Twitter enjoyed many years of success. It had long been a home for journalists, governments, academics and the public to share information on the key issues of the day. In emergencies, Twitter offered real-time support. During some of the worst disasters, users have shared information and made life-saving decisions.
While not without flaws – such as trolls, bots and online abuse – Twitter’s verification process and the ability to block and report inappropriate content was central to its success in building a thriving community.
This is also what sets Threads apart from competitors. By linking Threads to Instagram, Meta has given itself a significant head-start towards reaching the critical mass of users needed to establish itself as a leading platform (a privilege Mastodon didn’t enjoy).
Not only can Threads users retain their usernames, they can also bring their Instagram followers with them. The ability to retain community in an app that provides a similar experience to Twitter is what makes Threads the biggest threat yet.
My research shows that people crave authority, authenticity and community the most when they engage with online information. In our new book, my co-authors Donald O Case, Rebekah Willson and I explain how users search for information from sources they know and trust.
Twitter fans want an alternative platform with similar functionality, but most importantly they want to quickly find “their people.” They don’t want to have to rebuild their communities. This is likely why so many have stayed on Twitter, even as Musk has done so well to run it into the ground.
Challenges ahead
Of course, Twitter users may also be concerned about jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Signing up to yet another Meta app comes with its own concerns.
New Threads users who read the fine print will note that their information will be used to “personalize ads and other experiences” across both platforms. And users have pointed out you can only delete your Threads account if you delete your Instagram account.
This kind of entrenchment could be off-putting for some.
Moreover, Meta decided to not launch Threads anywhere in the European Union yesterday due to regulatory concerns. The EU’s new Digital Markets Act could raise challenges for Threads.
For example, the act sets out businesses can’t “track end users outside of [their] core platform service for the purpose of targeted advertising, without effective consent having been granted.” This may be in conflict with Threads’ privacy policy.
Meta has also announced plans to eventually move Threads towards a decentralized infrastructure.
In the app’s “How Threads Works” details, it says “future versions of Threads will work with the fediverse”, enabling “people to follow and interact with each other on different platforms, including Mastodon.”
This means people will be able to view and interact with Threads content from non-Meta accounts, without needing to sign up to Threads. Using the ActivityPub standard (which enables decentralized interoperability between platforms), Threads could then function the same way as WordPress, Mastodon and email servers – wherein users of one server can interact with others.
When and how Threads achieves this plan for decentralized engagement – and how this might impact users’ experience – is unclear.
Did Meta steal ‘trade secrets’?
As for Musk, he’s not going down without a fight. Just hours after Threads’ release, Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro released a letter accusing Meta of “systematic” and “unlawful misappropriation” of trade secrets.
The letter alleges former Twitter employees hired by Meta were “deliberately assigned” to “develop, in a matter of months, Meta’s copycat ‘Threads’ app.” Meta has disputed these claims, according to reports, but the rivalry between the two companies seems far from over.
Lisa M Given is Professor of Information Sciences & Director, Social Change Enabling Impact Platform, RMIT University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Singapore winning on inflation, losing on growth
SINGAPORE – Singapore’s central bank this week delivered a sobering economic assessment amid sluggish near-term growth prospects, ongoing inflationary challenges and predictions the economy is already in a technical recession.
The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) also emphasized that despite revising its 2023 headline inflation forecast downward, its battle against rising consumer prices is far from won.
The city-state’s trade-reliant economy faces mounting headwinds as external demand weakens amid a global economic slowdown.
Earlier this year, there were certain hopes that a post-pandemic economic rebound in China would lift Singapore above its tepid current growth forecast of between 0.5% to 2.5%.
Those hopes have since faltered as China’s economic recovery loses steam, with fewer and fewer independent economists predicting Beijing will hit its 5% economic growth target for 2023.
Singapore’s economy contracted in the first quarter, falling to -0.4% from the previous quarter’s growth of just 0.1%.
Economists believe that sluggish trade and industrial performance, driven partly by China’s faltering recovery, likely dragged Singapore into a technical recession in the second quarter, preliminary estimates for which are due later this month.
“The boost from China’s reopening has been limited and fallen short of expectations. It’s far from clear whether any boost is on the horizon, as China’s economic recovery is losing momentum,” said senior economists Chua Hak Bin and Brian Lee Shun Rong of Maybank Investment Banking Group in a research note reviewed by Asia Times.
In an annual review published on July 5, the MAS said that Singapore’s growth outlook will remain weak in the near term, with key growth engines such as manufacturing and financial services expected to “remain in the doldrums” as the global economy is expected to slow in the second half of 2023.
In comments accompanying the review’s release, MAS managing director Ravi Menon stated that growth in domestic-facing sectors is also expected to taper off as consumer demand slows due to higher interest rates and moderate wage increases.
Menon said Singapore’s 2023 gross domestic product (GDP) is set to slow “below-trend” within the official forecast range of 0.5% to 2.5%, down significantly from 3.6% in 2022. Inflation, while still above the historical average, has “clearly peaked and discernibly moderated” from recent 14-year highs, said Menon.
Imported inflation, he noted, has turned negative, reflecting the decline in global energy and food prices and the effects of a stronger Singapore dollar, which has risen in line with MAS’ aggressive monetary policy.
The MAS uses exchange rates, managed against a trade-weighted undisclosed basket of currencies from Singapore’s major trading partners, instead of interest rates as its primary policy tool to manage imported inflation.
It has enacted five rounds of monetary tightening since October 2021, causing the national dollar to appreciate by 8.3% and helping to curb imported cost pressures.
Core inflation, the central bank’s favored price measure which excludes private transport and accommodation, fell on a month-on-month seasonally adjusted annualized basis to 3.6% in May this year from a peak of 9.1% in June 2022, according to MAS data.
Headline inflation slowed year-on-year to 5.1% in May, down from 5.7% in April.
“Our progressive tightening of monetary policy has helped to arrest the momentum of price increases and facilitated a gradual decline in inflation,” said Menon.
“But the fight against inflation is not over and the monetary policy stance remains tight relative to the business cycle,” he added, noting that MAS has no intention of pivoting from “inflation-fighting mode” to “growth-supporting mode.”
With a more “benign” outlook for consumer prices, the central bank has lowered its headline, or all-items, inflation forecast for 2023 to a range of 4.5% to 5.5% from a previous estimate of 5.5% to 6.5%.
The full-year core inflation forecast remains unchanged at 3.5% to 4.5%, but is expected to moderate closer to 2.5% to 3.0% by the end of the year.
After refraining from a sixth round of policy tightening during a policy review in April, defying the forecasts of many economists, Menon said the MAS is “closely monitoring the evolving growth-inflation dynamics and [remaining] vigilant to risks on either side. We stand ready to adjust monetary policy as needed, especially if inflation momentum were to re-accelerate.”
Song Seng Wun, an independent economist formerly with CIMB Private Banking, told Asia Times that while energy and commodity prices have stabilized off their peaks “consumption on the services side is where inflationary pressure remains.”
“Despite the higher prices, people are still willing to pay because they’re gainfully employed and they still are quite confident about job security,” Song said.
Singapore’s labor market remains tight despite a recent uptick in retrenchments, with the overall unemployment rate standing at 1.8% in April, its lowest level since early 2015.
But with the rising likelihood that Singapore entered a technical recession in the second quarter, observers are split on whether falling export demand and declining industrial production will lead to a new round of layoffs.
The city-state’s non-oil domestic exports, seen as a barometer for external demand, contracted for an eighth consecutive month in May, dropping by 14.7%.
Exports of both electronics such as semiconductors and disk media products and non-electronics like specialized machinery, petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals registered steep declines.
Similarly, Singapore’s manufacturing output contracted for an eighth straight month in May, falling 10.8% year-on-year in the first double-digit contraction recorded since November 2019.
“We are likely to get another quarter of contraction. A technical recession remains highly likely,” said Song. “The drag from manufacturing and related industries will probably offset the service sector recovery. Despite that, labor market conditions here remain supportive and so consumer confidence remains quite resilient, although some businesses have trimmed.”
Maybank’s Chua and Lee expect the manufacturing downturn to persist in coming months amid weak external demand, which they note is “broad-based, although most evident in the prolonged global electronics slump.”
They predict Singapore’s second quarter GDP contracted by 0.8%, marking the first technical recession in the city-state since the two-month Covid-19 lockdown in 2020, which halted nearly all economic activity.
Follow Nile Bowie on Twitter at @NileBowie
Questioning Australiaâs AUKUS spending rationale
Australia’s purchase of nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement has been framed in terms of the jobs that would be created in submarine construction, rather than the security benefits that would flow to Australia from their deployment some decades hence.
This is a longstanding tradition. Because defense is an essential function of any national government, military spending has rarely — if ever — been subject to benefit-cost analysis.
And in the absence of any specific rationale for particular defense expenditure projects, such as a current or imminent war, a variety of economic benefits have been cited as reasons for approving those projects.
Decision-making with respect to military expenditure should begin with a single central objective, that of national self-defense against invasion, with other possible uses of military force being regarded as peripheral.
In any such assessment, expenditure that significantly reduces the existential risk of invasion, air attack or naval blockade can be regarded as essential.
Any other use of military power needs to be assessed in terms of opportunity costs and benefits. That is, military spending should be compared to alternative public and private expenditures — ideally those with comparable benefits.
For example, contributions to Ukraine’s resistance to the Russian invasion could be compared to civilian forms of overseas aid. Such an assessment could include both direct benefits, such as protecting civilians from war and hunger, as well as global public goods, including upholding international law and reducing the instability associated with mass poverty.
Various claims are frequently made to present a strong case for military expenditure, but they are rarely subject to careful scrutiny. The Australian government’s assertion that the AUKUS nuclear submarine purchases are needed to protect vital international shipping routes, such as to Singapore or through the South China Sea, is one example of such a claim.
Generally, such shipping routes are convenient rather than vital. Except for trade with China itself, all shipping that currently flows through the South China Sea could take alternative roundabout routes if necessary. In the worst case, shipping from Europe to East and Southeast Asia could travel south of Australia.
This is not merely hypothetical. The Suez Canal was long regarded as a vital route, but when it was blocked shipping had to go around the Cape of Good Hope. The resulting cost increases were large relative to the shorter route, but tiny in relation to the national income of the countries involved in trade. Similar points can be made with even more force about problems such as piracy.
By contrast, a full-scale naval blockade — of the kind seen during the world wars aimed at starving the target nation into submission — does represent an existential risk. But the risk of such a blockade for Australia is negligible except in the event of a new world war, which would probably involve the use of nuclear weapons, against which no current defense is feasible.
Claims about the usefulness of military power to seize resources are obsolete, as observed by Norman Angell in his 1911 book, “The Great Illusion.” Though Angell’s arguments were ignored, the First World War proved his point in disastrous fashion for all of the major participants. A century of subsequent experience has yielded ample confirmation that war never yields net economic benefits.
This is particularly true of the oil, gas and fishery resources of the South China Sea, which have been the subject of disputes for decades. Despite regular saber-rattling and occasional low-level conflict, the actual conduct of the countries in the region reflects the fact that these resources are not worth fighting over.
The crucial issues for Australia arise in relation to expeditionary forces, typically deployed as part of operations undertaken by the United States. Before considering the possible benefits of such deployment, it is worth observing that outright failure – as seen in Afghanistan and Vietnam – has been the most common outcome and that successes, such as in Iraq and Syria, have been equivocal at best.
The number of expeditionary operations is large enough to consider benefits and costs. To evaluate the benefits, Australia’s relationships with regimes where expeditionary forces were defeated can be compared with those where forces were “successful” in military terms. It is hard to see a difference sufficient to justify the loss of lives and money.
On AUKUS, approaches to public investment, whether military or civil, based on counts of “jobs created” are rarely satisfactory. In most cases, the workers filling these jobs are diverted from other, higher-value activities, with no effect on the level of employment and unemployment.
In this context, it is perhaps churlish to observe that the estimated cost of AU$18 million per job created by AUKUS is massively more than in a typical domestic boondoggle.
The real question yet to be answered about the AUKUS deal is how, if at all, the submarines that Australia is buying will protect us against the fortunately remote threat of foreign conquest.
John Quiggin is Australian Laureate Fellow at the School of Economics at the University of Queensland.
This article was originally published by East Asia Forum and is republished under a Creative Commons license.
MFP urged not to back down on S112
Activist Anon Nampa says coalition parties must remain true to ‘people’s agenda’
The Move Forward Party (MFP) must not back down on its push to amend the lese-majeste law, reform the armed forces and pardon those indicted for expressing political opinions, otherwise it will lose mass support, says human rights lawyer Anon Nampa.
Mr Anon, a member of Thai Lawyers for Human Rights (TLHR) and leader of the Ratsadon pro-democracy movement, made the comments on Friday in an interview on the Inside Thailand television programme on Channel 9.
He was responding to questions about a Facebook post that he directed at the MFP.
He said he wanted to send a message to Move Forward, Pheu Thai and the six other parties forming a new government that although politics involves a lot of bargaining, the people’s agenda should not be abandoned.
Mr Anon said the struggle by people of the “new generation” over the past three years is now moving towards being carried out in parliament instead of on the streets.
Since the protesters had high expectations about the result of the May 14 election, the coalition-leading MFP should not let them down, he said. If they fail to get what they wanted, they would certainly walk away from the party, he added.
“This is not a threat, but a friendly warning,” said Mr Anon. “Backing down on demands made by 14 million voters in exchange for the post of prime minister would not do any good to the democracy side.”
Parliament will meet on Thursday to vote for the next prime minister. Move Forward leader Pita Limjaroenrat has 312 votes from the eight-party coalition but needs another 64 votes to win the job. Most of those votes will need to come from the unelected Senate but the support of its members appears limited. Many reportedly say the party’s plan to amend Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese-majeste law, is a major concern.
“Concerning the proposed amendment to Section 112, the MFP should at least table it for deliberation in the House of Representatives,” Mr Anon said. “Whether it gets passed into law rests with parliament. There are still many steps to be taken to get the law amended.
“The best thing we should do now is to not allow the people to again risk their lives or be prosecuted under Section 112. We voted for the MFP and Pheu Thai and managed to push some of our friends in the Ratsadon movement into parliament for this purpose.”
The activist lawyer said the MFP should not back down on its demands in exchange for the post of prime minister.
Both the MFP and Pheu Thai must maintain the momentum of democracy, he said. They must not shake hands with the other side that is trying to perpetuate the old power, including the Bhumjaithai and Democrat parties. Doing so would be a disaster for the democratic side, said Mr Anon.
All eight parties in the new government, he said, must join hands to reform the armed forces, amend Section 112 and push for pardons for those prosecuted for expressing political opinions.
“They must fight for these in parliament, regardless of whether they are successful or not,” he said. “People outside parliament are ready to show support, by means of holding rallies and other activities.”
Asked whether any activities are planned when parliament convenes on Thursday, Mr Anon said the matter had been discussed on social media but no venue had been chosen.
He said he believed any rally would be organic and without leaders as before.
According to data from TLHR to June 30 this year, 1,916 people have been prosecuted for political participation and expression since the beginning of the Free Youth protests in July 2020. At least 252 are facing lese-majeste charges under Section 112 and 130 have been charged with sedition under Section 116.
Bukit Panjang LRT rolls out new safety feature that detects track intrusions using video analytics
SBS Transit, which runs the other LRT networks at Sengkang and Punggol, told CNA that it is trialling a similar system for the two lines.
Like iSafe, SBS Transit’s video analytics system known as VAnGuard can also detect passengers and foreign objects on both the tracks and the platform by analysing surveillance footage from the cameras in the stations.
“The system can also detect wheelchairs and unattended objects at the LRT platform, enabling us to provide passenger assistance or take security action if needed,” said the transport operator’s spokesperson Grace Wu.
Trials started more than three years ago but was put on hold due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The company is currently stress-testing the system at the Sengkang Town Centre Station, which was selected for its high crowd density.
The feature is expected to roll out across all 28 stations later this year.Continue Reading
Uzbek man held in connection with Pattaya sex trade
Suspect lured compatriots with promises of restaurant jobs but then forced them into prostitution
An Uzbek man has been arrested at Suvarnabhumi airport on charges of luring his compatriots into the flesh trade in Pattaya while two Uzbek women involved managed to flee, according to police.
Officers from the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division (ATPO) apprehended the 32-year-old suspect at the airport on Thursday as he was about to flee the country, Pol Maj Gen Sarut Kwaengsopha, the ATPD commander, said on Friday.
The suspect, identified only as Navruzbek, was wanted on a warrant issued by the Criminal Court on charges of colluding in human trafficking by procuring women into the flesh trade.
According to police, Mr Navruzek and two Uzbek women had lured their compatriots into forced prostitution in Thailand by claiming that they would take them to work as assistant cooks at a restaurant in Pattaya. Many young women had fallen victim to the gang.
When they arrived in Thailand, the women ended up being forced into providing sex services to customers along a beach near Pattaya’s popular Walking Street, said Pol Col Pattanapong Sriphinphor, superintendent of ATPO Sub-division 2.
Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division police discuss the workings of an Uzbek human trafficking gang at a press conference on Friday. (Photo: Wassayos Ngamkham)
The suspect and his associates also trapped the women in debt bondage, telling them that they owed US$5,000 for travelling expenses and visa arrangements.
“Any victims who disobeyed the gang would be physically assaulted, illegally detained or denied food,” said Pol Col Pattanapong.
“Most victims had no choice and had to provide sex services. Each was forced to sell sex at least four times a day from 6pm to 6am. Those who did not meet the target would be punished by not being given food. The victims were given one meal a day.
“If the victims asked for their wages or wanted to return to their home country, the gang rejected by claiming that they had to pay back their debts first.”
According to the police investigation, the suspects asked their victims to work in Pattaya first before taking them to Bahrain, where they could earn more money.
One woman mmanaged to flee to seek help from the NightLight Foundation and Operation Underground Railroad, an anti-human trafficking organisation from the United States. She was later taken to file a complaint with the ATPO police.
Investigators subsequently issued warrants for the arrest of Mr Navruzbek and two Uzbek women — the alleged gang leader Zumrat, 42, and procurer Diloromkon, 22.
Ms Zumrat and Ms Diloromkon managed to take 17 victims with them when they fled the country, said Pol Col Pattanapong. The Uzbek man was about to flee, but was caught at the airport.
During questioning, he denied all charges, but admitted to having known Ms Zumrat. He was being held in police custody for legal action.
Hong Kong jails first person under cannabis compound CBD ban
A magistrate on Friday sentenced her to two months’ imprisonment for two counts of drug possession and one count related to the syringes. Hong Kong customs said the jail term “reflects the seriousness of the offence and serves as a clear warning to the general public”. Anyone who possesses orContinue Reading
IAEA chief Grossi hints at discord among Fukushima report experts
Grossi said the IAEA’s report did not amount to an endorsement of the plan and that Tokyo must take the final decision to release the water due to start later this summer. “We do not endorse the plan or recommend this to be done. We say this plan is consistentContinue Reading