Police have arrested two men for being alleged members of a Poipet-based call scam centre that tricked many people, including a beauty queen who alone lost 4 million baht.
Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau, said on Monday that Ramil Pantawong, 31, was arrested in Wang Nam Yen district of Sa Kaeo and Thanawut Kanyaphan, 28, was caught in Bang Lamung district of Chon Buri on Sunday.
According to the commissioner, both suspects used artificial intelligence technology to pretend to be police officers. They were based at a call scam centre in an 18-storey building in Poipet. Their gang of about 50 culprits occupied the 13th floor of the building where a Thai man recently fell to his death.
Both pretended to be Thai police officers and used scripts written by their Chinese gang leaders to trick Thai victims out of huge sums. Their victims included Thai-British beauty queen Charlotte Austin, who lost 4 million baht to the gang.
With AI assistance, the suspects pretended to be police officers. They told victims that they were investigating money-laundering and narcotics cases and then ordered them to transfer money to their accounts for examination, Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop said.
The scam gang had tricked 163 people before both suspects were arrested, he said.
Thanawut Kanyaphan, 28, was caught in Bang Lamung district of Chon Buri on Sunday. (Police photo)