Five arrested in Taiwan-based international call centre scam

BANGKOK, June 18 -- Police on Friday arrested four suspects in relation to a call centre scam, deceiving victims in Thailand to transfer money to them with more than 50 people falling victim to the gang, according to Central Investigation Bureau deputy chief Pol Maj Gen Panya Mamen.

Gen Panya said that Tan Chen Hang, 29, a Malaysian, and four Thais were arrested at an apartment in Khlong Nueng subdistrict in Pathum Thani's Khlong Luang district.

He said the gang's centre is in Taiwan, but they made long distance telephone calls to deceive Thai nationals here informing them of having outstanding credit card debt. If the victims insisted they had no such debt, the gang told the victims that their accounts may have been hacked for financial information.

The scammers advised them to withdraw money from their accounts and deposit the funds in a central account at the bank via ATM to 'protect' their money.

Unwitting victims are tricked into transferring money by ATM into accounts opened by the gang, he said, adding that more than 50 victims were misled to transfer money to them.

They suspects confessed that they were responsible for withdrawing cash from banks and received Bt1,400 daily while the Malaysian who headed the gang would responsible for coordination and got a Bt80,000 monthly salary.

Initially the five will be charged for illegally processing and using other people's electronic cards, causing damage to others and the general public. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2011-06-18

The Taiwanese are quite busy lately.

There seems to be no end to the number of new scams coming out every day.I get hammered by these con

artists every night.

A nice short 10 year minimum sentence at the Bangkok Hilton should just suit these chaps I would think.

another scam running ( hit thailand lately) is someone calling saying a child or other relation is in another country ( usually hospital) and they need money wired to an account asap/