Thai policeman & govt official arrested for selling personal info to scam call centre

A police officer and a government official have been arrested for selling the personal information of Thai people to scam call centre gangs.

The Deputy Commissioner of the Royal Thai Police, Torsak Sookwimon, revealed today that two government officials were involved with a scam call centre gang, and have been prosecuted for their actions. The first officer is a police lieutenant colonel, and the second one is a Commerce Ministry officer.

Torsak revealed that the two crooks were arrested by cyber police with 14 other suspects at the beginning of this month. Eight suspects were arrested for opening bank accounts for scammers, one suspect was arrested for being a coordinator of a Chinese scam leader, and two suspects, the officials, were arrested for gathering information about Thai people and transferring them to the scam gangs.

Torsak revealed that the two officials worked in positions that allowed them to access the personal information of Thai citizens, with information from more than 1,000 people transferred to the scam call centre gangs.

Torsak reported that the police officer could access civil registration data while the commerce officer could access trade registration data. The commerce officer would pick only Thai people who had businesses with high authorised capital.

The two earned around 20,000 baht per day and about 600,000 baht per month from the call centre gangs. The bank accounts of the crooked government officials showed that they had been working with the scammers for a while, but the report did not state exactly how long.

Torsak warned other government officials to avoid getting involved with the scammers. Torsak said…

“If any government official is found to be involved with this kind of fraud, they will be punished harder than other residents.”

The report did not reveal the punishment against the two government officials but they are expected to be charged under Section 27 of the Personal Data Protection Act: controlling or revealing the personal information of others without permission from the owner of the information.

They could face at least one year of imprisonment, a fine of up to 3 million baht, and compensation for victims which is another 6 million on top of the original fine.