Thai Police arrest woman for million-baht cyber scam

A 44 year old woman was arrested by the cybercrime division of the Thai Police today for her alleged involvement in a fraud operation that lost victims over 1 million baht. The operation comprised a gang operating call centres, which conned their victims into revealing sensitive banking information. The call centres duped victims by pretending to be bank employees or police officers.

The scammers would contact unsuspecting victims, posing as employees from various banks. They would then inform victims that their personal information was being abused to open and use credit cards, which had impending payments. To report the cybercrime incident, the scammers instructed victims to report the situation online. Once online, the victims were connected to the fraudsters posing as police officers from the Mueang Buriram Police Station.

Following this, the gang instructed the victims to add a contact named “Mueang Buriram Police Station” on a messaging app, Line. They then facilitated conversations between the victim and the individual posing as the Director of Mueang Chiang Rai Police Station. This successfully tricked the victims into believing that the situation was indeed legitimate, reported KhaoSod.

The scammers then threatened victims with legal action unless they transferred money as a sign of sincere intentions. The act displayed by the call centre fraudsters led victims into transferring money several times into the account of the fraudulent group. When victims began noticing irregularities and suspected they had been scammed by professional con artists, they reported the incident. The scams resulted in losses amounting to more than 1,876,000 baht (US$53,265).

After investigations, it was found that a suspect, Prathanha, resided in Pathum Thani province, issuing summons followed by the arrest. Prathanha confessed to opening bank accounts for other individuals. She was charged with jointly defrauding the public by impersonating others and entering false or distorted data into a computer system, which is likely to cause damage to others or the public. Prathanha was then handed over to the investigation officer of the 5th Special Operations Division for further legal action.