Bangkok police have arrested six members of a Chinese gang who are accused of selling fake gold bars to customers in the Chinatown area. The police also seized fake gold bars weighing about 30kg.

Pol Maj-Gen Teeradej Thumsutee, commander of the investigative division of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, said that the gang would choose their potential victims from lists of members of Chinese associations in Thailand.

After choosing their wealthy potential targets, gang members would call each of them, via their call centre in Indonesia, claiming that they had the concession to look for ancient gold in Ayutthaya province and had found several gold bars that they would like to sell.

One victim fell prey to the gang and paid 500,000 baht for the fake gold.

To convince their victims that the gold bars are real, Teeradej said they put real gold in the middle of a gold bar and allowed their victims to satisfy themselves that the gold was “genuine” by using a saw to cut the bar and take a sample from the inner core of real gold for testing.

The first two Chinese suspects were arrested by police at Hua Lamphong railway station. Their confessions led the police to arrest four other gang members at a hotel in the Ratchadapisek area.

The police seized fake gold and gold from the gang, some of it in the shape of a Buddha figurine, 24 ATM cards, 12 smart phones, a saw and 46 books of Chinese associations in Thailand.