Thais, Taiwanese phone-scammers caught in Malaysia

Thais, Taiwanese phone-scammers caught in Malaysia

Two Taiwanese phone scammers are interrogated by Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy chief of the Tourist Police Bureau, during the joint raid by Thai and Malaysian police on a house in Penang that served as a base for a Taiwanese-led phone-call scam gang. (Photo taken from @1155TPB Tourist Police Bureau Facebook page)
Two Taiwanese phone scammers are interrogated by Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy chief of the Tourist Police Bureau, during the joint raid by Thai and Malaysian police on a house in Penang that served as a base for a Taiwanese-led phone-call scam gang. (Photo taken from @1155TPB Tourist Police Bureau Facebook page)

Ten Thais and two Taiwanese were arrested during a joint raid by Thai and Malaysian police on a house in Penang, Malaysia, used as a base by a Taiwanese-led phone-call syndicate late on Tuesday night.

Thai tourist police accompanied officers from Malaysia's economic crime suppression unit to the large house in a hilly area of Penang State.

They were acting in information it served as a base for an international gang of phone-call scammers.

The officers arrested 10 Thais who worked the phones and two Taiwanese men who controlled and directed the operation. 

Communications gear, computers, mobile phones and several bank account books were seized from the house as evidence, Pol Maj Gen Surachate Hakparn, deputy commissioner of the Tourist Police Bureau said at news briefing on Wednesday after returning from Malaysia.

The Thais, most from Songkhla and Sukhothai provinces, claimed they had been duped into the job, and were being forced into making phone calls from Malaysia to swindle victims in Thailand.

They had conned their Thai victims into transferring more than 400,000 baht into the gang's bank accounts over the last month.

Pol Maj Gen Surachate said it was the third joint operation against call-scammers in Malaysia. One of the 10 Thais had managed to flee during the raid, but was soon caught.

The Penang gang was part of the network of Taiwanese fugitive Chen Yuen Kai, who was earlier arrested but fled overseas after being released on bail last year, he said.

Some of 10 Thais caught during the phone call-gang bust in Penag, Malaysia, late on Tuesday night. (Photo taken from @1155TPB Tourist Police Bureau Facebook page)


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