The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) announced yesterday the cracking of a transnational scamming gang, which has been operating in Thailand for several years and has duped victims in more than 20 countries, causing damage estimated at over two billion baht.
Nine suspects, including a Nigerian, two Cameroonians and seven Thais, have been arrested in raids on 11 locations in Bangkok, Nakhon Pathom, Kanchanaburi, Chanthaburi and Krabi provinces by DSI officers and immigration police.
DSI Director-General Pol Maj Yutthana Praedam said the suspects have been charged with defrauding the public, money laundering and being members of a transnational criminal organization.
Valuables and cash, worth about 350 million baht, were seized from the suspects. These include three cars, three motorcycles, digital currencies, 18 smart phones, 13 desk-top computers, 21 bank books and about 15 tonnes of copper-coloured metal.
Yutthana said commercial banks have been asked to freeze 500 bank accounts linked to the gang.
He disclosed that complaints against the gang emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, from people who claimed that they had ordered medical gloves and face masks via the gang’s websites, but did not receive them.
He said an investigation by the DSI shows that as many as 30 foreign scammers entered Thailand on tourist visas and several of them married Thai women, so they could stay longer, adding that others worked as language teachers, to improve their profiles, or set up skeleton companies to be used as a front for the scamming activities.
He claimed that the gang had set up about 100 shell companies and created more than 2,000 fake websites, which engaged in the online trading of goods and services to cheat their customers.
