Police swoop on 2 loan shark gangs in 4 provinces of Thailand

Officers from the Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) swooped on two loan shark gangs operating in four provinces in Thailand and arrested four crooks. Money worth over 1 billion baht was in circulation as the racketeers collected interest from debtors at an extortionate rate of 547.5% per year.

The ECD targeted two illegal money-lending gangs: Burin-credit and Memoney-Credit and raided offices in four provinces yesterday, including Bangkok, Phichit, Samut Prakarn, and Chantaburi.

During the raid, police arrested four male suspects: 29 year old Thotsapphon Chiangka, 29 year old Sakkarin Chinorot, 27 year old Yutthana Fuengfu, and 21 year old Kiattisak Thamkongthong.

Police also seized a large number of illegal documents, including 22 fraudulent loan agreements worth 7,990,000 baht, along with 13 computers, 38 mobile phones, 50 SIM cards used by the gangs to operate their illegal businesses, and eight cars. Four of the cars, which belonged to the arrested men, included a Mercedes Benz, BMW, and Toyota. Four Hyundai cars were surrendered by debtors to pay off loans.

Police reported that the ECD received a complaint about the Burin-credit loan shark gang at the beginning of last year. Burin-credit opened an online system for people to apply for a loan, charging an interest rate of 1.5% a day or 547.5% a year. The gang’s primary target was small business operators who could not access formal loans from legal financial institutions.

Burin-credit was reportedly using violence against debtors who missed payment dates. They made a call to threaten debtors and even visited debtors’ homes or businesses to attack them.

The four suspects operated the Burin-credit website together before Sakkarin opened Memoney-Credit. The police reported that over 1 billion baht was in circulation on the two money lending websites last year.

The four suspects admitted to offering loans with an interest rate higher than the legal limit. However, all of them insisted that they had never attacked or threatened debtors to pay back debts.

They were charged with offering personal loans without permission, demanding interest exceeding the legal rate, and using violent acts to collect a debt.