A phone scam gang member who masqueraded as a high-ranking policeman and duped three victims into transferring over 150 million baht has been arrested in Ayutthaya province.
Officers from the Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) and the Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) apprehended Chonwicha Pansamut, of Ban Phaeo district in Samut Sakhon province, in tambon Sanabtueb in Wang Noi district, Ayutthaya, on Friday, Pol Maj Gen Theeradet Thamsuthee, chief of investigation at the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said on Saturday.
The arresting team seized 16 items of assets from Mr Chonwicha, including bank accounts, gold ornaments, cash, watches and mobile phones. The 32-year-old suspect was charged with colluding in public fraud, illegal assembly, transnational crime, putting false information into a computer system, money laundering and related offences.
According to Pol Maj Gen Theeradet, PCT officers earlier sought approval from the Samut Prakan Provincial court to issue 58 arrest warrants for call centre scammers preying on Thai victims. The authorities have obtained evidence that Mr Chonwicha was a prime suspect in three major scam cases in which victims had been lured to transfer more than 150 million baht to his scam gang’s bank accounts. Mr Chonwicha was posing as the chief of Muang district police in Chiang Rai province.
On Oct 17, PCT investigators joined Cambodian police in raiding a building in Poipet after learning that members of the call centre gang were working there. However, Taiwanese gang leaders were able to help Mr Chonwicha and other Thai scammers flee.
The PCT team later learned that the prime suspect had returned to Thailand. They began tracing his whereabouts that led to his arrest in Ayutthaya.
During questioning, Mr Chonwicha confessed to all charges, said Pol Maj Gen Theeradet.
The suspect admitted to having colluded with other scammers into luring Thai victims into transferring money to his gang.
Before joining the scam gang, he sneaked across the border to Cambodia via natural bordering crossing to work as an administrator of a gambling website in Poipet in Nov last year.
In February this year, he began working as a phone call scammer in the second line of phone scam operation. He was tasked with posing as a police lieutenant in Muang district of Chiang Rai. Taiwanese scam gang leaders were satisfied with his work performance and promoted him to be a senior staffer in the third line of scam operation in which he posted as a police colonel. He could lure victims into wiring 7 million to 8 million baht a month to his gang.
Pol Maj Gen Theeradet said the suspect was also held responsible for three major cases.
In the first case, he managed to lure Ms Ampha, a retired teacher, into transferring him 11 million baht in April this year.
In the second case, the suspect duped stock investor Wichai into transferring 41 million baht to his gang in July.
The third victim was a female doctor in Chumphon province who was duped into transferring 101 million baht to the gang, said Pol Maj Gen Theeradet. Surnames of the victims were withheld.
The suspect said his gang had about 50-60 Thai staff. During the first three months of his work, he received a monthly salary of about 20,000 baht. His salary later rose to 30,000 baht plus 3% commission fees of the amount of money deceived from victims.
His commission fees were 2 million baht from swindling the three major victims. Since joining the scam gang, he earned about 4 million baht. He spent around one million baht to build a house in Thailand and gave his relatives about one million baht. He bought gold ornaments for about 500,000 baht and the remaining sum was used to finance his personal expenses and online gambling.
The suspect was handed over to cybercrime police for legal action, with his assets seized.