The Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) is warning people not to fall for calls by scammers pretending to be staff from the Department of Internal Trade after one such crook allegedly embezzled 16 million baht from his victim's bank account.
CCIB commissioner Pol Lt Gen Worawat Watnakornbancha said on Monday that it is probing the complaint by a man named only as "Mr Wachara", 40, a businessman in Chon Buri, who submitted evidence on Monday that a scammer had called him on Friday, claiming to be a Department of Internal Trade official.
The scammer informed him that the Department of Business Development was endorsing a new policy which required an information update from businessmen.
He was told to open a fake link sent to his Line mobile app and fill out the form with his personal information. After submitting the form online, Mr Wachara found that there had been nine withdrawals from his savings account worth 16 million baht.
Mr Wachara said he was surprised that the bank did not have more security measures in place to protect its customers. The bank had not contacted him even though an unusual sum of money was transferred to mule accounts, he added.
According to the investigation, the money was withdrawn from a Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) account and sent to 20 mule accounts and then eventually transferred into cryptocurrency, said Pol Lt Gen Worawat.
Pol Col Kissana Phatthanacharoen, CCIB spokesman, emphasised that there has been an increasing number of victims of such scams recently.
Many callers claimed they were Commerce Ministry officials and asked victims to install an app on their mobiles to update their company and personal information.
After the victims completed the process, the app, which was disguised remote access malware, shared the information and allowed criminals to access accounts on banking apps and transfer money into proxy accounts.
Pol Col Kissana said that it was important that people avoid opening suspicious links sent from unknown phone numbers.