SAMUT PRAKAN: Police rescued an injured Malaysian woman from a Taiwanese man who allegedly tortured her repeatedly after she failed to lure victims for his call scam.
Pol Maj Gen Surachet Hakpal, an acting deputy tourist police chief, led officers to help Khu Wen Ching, 19, from a room on the 10th storey of a building at kilometre marker 5 of Theparat Road in tambon Bang Kaew of Bang Phli district at about 7pm on Friday.
The raid followed a complaint from the Malaysian embassy that the woman had been lured into working there and physically assaulted.
In the room, authorities found eight Malaysian men and women. Miss Khu was seen with bruises on her body, including a big one on her right thigh. She said that her Taiwanese employer, Zhao Fei Long, had hit her.
Earlier, she had been recommended to work in Thailand as a customer-service operator for three months for 5,500 ringgit (43,100 baht). She arrived on Aug 28 only to find that her job involved sending voice messages to people in Malaysia to falsely inform them that they had credit card debts.
Aware that it was a scam, she was unwilling to participate and the Taiwanese man allegedly hit her repeatedly on her hip, arms and thighs. She also claimed he had made shallow stab marks on the back of her hand with a knife and pointed it at her neck.
After the assaults was repeated on Oct 22 and 26, she sent a message to a relative in Malaysia for help.
Mr Zhao, 29, was arrested and confessed to the crime, authorities said. He said his Malaysian employees in Samut Prakan had to send voice messages via the internet to people in Malaysia. When the victims called back, they would transfer their calls to accomplices in Malaysia to arrange for money transfers via ATMs.
Police found the Taiwanese man entered Thailand in early August. He was initially charged with harmful physical assault.
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Taiwanese suspect Zhao Fei Long, 29, holds a steel pipe allegedly used to hit a Malaysian woman in the room where he was arrested as acting deputy tourist police chief Surachet Hakpal (left) looks on. (Photos by Sutthiwit Chaiyutworakarn)
Equipment used in the online call scam seized at the scene
The victim points to a stab wound on her injured hand