Police arrest swindlers preying on American retirees
published : 22 Mar 2023 at 09:23
writer: Gary Boyle
ORIGINAL SOURCE/WRITER: Wassayos Ngamkham and Chaiyot Pupattanapong
An Indian man and three Thai women were detained for questioning during police raids on 36 premises on Tuesday targeting phone scammers who tricked 365 elderly Americans into sending them more than 3 billion baht.
The morning raids were in Chon Buri, Rayong, Samut Prakan and Roi Et provinces.
At a house in Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri, many bank account books, 10 mobile phones, four cars and one gun were seized. The house owner, an Indian man, and three Thai women were taken in for questioning.
The FBI and US Secret Service had received a report that many US citizens had fallen victim to phone scammers claiming to be FBI agents.
They were fooled into transferring their money "for examination". They were told there were unusual transactions linked to their bank accounts, police said.
Most of the victims were aged 60 years or more. Over the past two years, a total of 365 Americans had been swindled out of the equivalent of more than 3 billion baht by the scammers, police said.
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Vocabulary
- citizen: someone who has the right to live permanently in a particular country - พลเมือง
- FBI (noun): (noun) Federal Bureau of Investigation; the police department in the US that is controlled by the national government and that is responsible for dealing with crimes that affect more than one state - สำนักงานสอบสวนกลางแห่งสหรัฐอเมริกา
- fool: to trick somebody into believing something that is not true - หลอกลวง, ลวงให้เข้าใจผิด
- prey on: to hurt or deceive a group of people, especially people who are weak or can easily be hurt or deceived - หาเหยื่อ
- questioning: when the police asks a person questions in the investigation of a crime -
- raid: to forcefully and suddenly enter a place to catch criminals or to search for something like drugs - ใช้กำลังเข้าค้นสถานที่หรือ จับกุมคนร้าย
- retiree: a person who has stopped working because of their age - ผู้ที่หยุดทำงานแล้ว, ผู้ที่เกษียณแล้ว
- scammer (noun): a criminal is clever at tricking you out of your money by taking advantage of any weaknesses they can discover - นักฉ้อโกง, นักหลอกลวง
- seize (verb): to take something using force - ยึด, จับกุม
- swindle: to obtain money dishonestly from someone by deceiving or cheating them - โกง
- swindler: cheater; scammer; a person who lies to other people to get money - คนหลอกลวง
- transaction: a business dealing - การติดต่อทางธุรกิจ
- unusual (adj): different from what is usual or normal - ผิดปกติ
- victim: someone who has been harmed, injured or killed as the result of a crime - เหยื่อผู้เคราะห์ร้าย
