Dozens of call centre scammers caught in Thai-Cambodia net

Dozens of Thai scammers have been arrested and illegal call centres shut down after a sophisticated months’ long Thai-Cambodian law enforcement operation closed the net on their fraudulent activity.

According to different reports, numbers between 15 to 89 Thai scammers took part in a number of illegal activities in Cambodia to extort money by false means in everything from romance cons, DHL scams, and even impersonating a police officer.

The Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) reported that the Thai criminals will be extradited to Thailand after they are prosecuted for immigration offenses.

The law enforcement operation began tracking the illegal activities a few months ago in Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Poi Pet and swooped to make arrests in late June and early July.

The PCT reported they were linked to four call center networks which included a phony forex and digital currency trading ring, an illegal online casino den, a scam call centre that pretended to be a Thai police station, and a scam call centre that was giving out fake loans in Sihanoukville.

Twenty-one suspects who used Tinder to swindle victims into investing in cryptocurrencies were arrested on June 21 by the PCT at the 12-storey Ching Cheng Hotel in Sihanoukville, a coastal city and the capital of Preah Sihanouk province.

On July 6, another suspect, Jirayu Poemchuen, was arrested for allegedly claiming to be the superintendent of Laem Chabang police station in Chon Buri’s Si Racha district. Jirayu convinced victims to transfer money to him. The PCT arrested 18 suspects as part of this scam at Pratu Daeng in Sihanoukville. On the same day, 10 suspects were arrested at another site in Sihanoukville.

On July 7 a PCT team arrested 25 members of a call centre gang that claimed falsely to be part of the DHL express delivery company, operating in the Cambodian city of Poi Pet, opposite Thailand’s Aranyaprathet.

Many of the scammers working at these call centres were southeast Asians duped into working for the gangs who are allegedly funded by a wider Chinese-run transnational crime syndicate.

The PCT reported that more than 800 Thais have been arrested or rescued from these gangs over the past six months, and at least 1000 thousand more are still working for them.

Police General Damrongsak Kittiprapas, deputy commissioner-general of the Royal Thai Police and PCT’s chief, told reporters…

“Once the litigation process in Cambodia is done, the Cambodian authorities will transfer them to Thailand and I along with officers from the PCT will pick them up in Sa Kaeo.

SOURCE: Bangkok Post Thai Enquirer Coconuts