Thai Ministry to reimburse victims of call centre scams

The Thai Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES) announced plans to reimburse victims with more than 10 billion baht worth of money and assets, previously seized from call centre scam operations.

The assets, including 6 billion baht in cash, were retrieved by the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) in 2021, according to Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong.

He iterated that AMLO is poised to dispense all seized assets back to call centre scam victims. To qualify for this, victims must present bank payment confirmations linking them to the scam suspects. These confirmations can be submitted to AMLO through postal service, in person or via email.

Once the evidence has been received, it will be forwarded to the court to solicit asset protection for the victims, with the asset investigation process expected to be concluded within a year. The value of the returned assets will not exceed the total assets currently held by Amlo.

Prasert added that victims who had previously failed to file a police report can now submit their evidence to Amlo for a chance to reclaim their assets. The details of AMLO’s asset return strategy will be published in the Royal Gazette in the next 90 days.

Minister Prasert, flanked by the Royal Thai Police’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) and a cryptocurrency organisation named Binance, unveiled details about a bust on a Chinese-led hybrid scam syndicate on Wednesday. This operation reportedly inflicted damage worth no less than 250 million baht.

During the operation, a suspect named Su Shoaxian and three other Chinese nationals were apprehended and assets valued at or exceeding 600 million baht were seized. The suspects allegedly enticed victims to invest in cryptocurrency trading through a fraudulent mobile application and lured them into transferring money to accounts under Su’s name, masquerading as digital exchanges.

Further investigation led to the arrest of four additional suspects: 31 year old Wisit, 25 year old Siraphat, a 45 year old Chinese citizen named Dongjian, and a 41 year old Singaporean named Wei King Kek. The charges levelled against them include fraud, money laundering, participation in transnational crime organisations, and deceitful importation of distorted computer data, reported Bangkok Post.

According to Prasert, the police have also issued 26 arrest warrants.