Police raid 14 scam call centres in Pattaya, resulting in one arrest
Cyber police and officers from Thai mobile phone operator AIS yesterday raided 14 rental accommodations used to operate call centre scams in Pattaya and made one arrest.
Officers investigated 16 venues in total but only 14 were being used for criminal activity, in the Bang Lamueng district of Pattaya, where AIS detected a signal the call centre scam gang used to contact victims. The police found 101 Internet Protocol Private Branch Exchanges and 46 WiFi routers in 14 places.
One Thai member of staff, who took care of all the systems, was arrested at the scene. The man was charged with defrauding people and importing false information into a computer system, which caused damage to the public according to the Radiocommunication Act and Customs Act.
The man could face a penalty of up to 10 years in jail, a fine of up to 200,000 baht, or both for violating the acts.
The Commissioner of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, Kornchai Klaiklueng, informed the media that the IP PBX and WiFi routers allowed the system to automatically make a call 1,616,000 times per day.
Kornchai reported that the cyber police raided 8 scam call centre bases in the Bang Na, Hauy Kwang, and Lat Prao districts of Bangkok a week ago. He said the police would continue investigating until they track down the leader of the scam gangs.
He insists the police take all scam call centre cases seriously.
Thailand citizens have suffered from scam calls for a long time and the situation appears to be getting worse. Many scammers are lured into working with Chinese gangs in Thailand and neighboring countries, with some claiming they have been tortured if they don’t hit their scam targets while others lured into transferring money have even committed suicide due to the loss of money.
