Seven Vietnamese people have been arrested at a house in Pathum Thani for operating an illegal online lending business, charging customers in Vietnam high floating interest rates, Thai police said on Saturday.
A team of immigration, cybercrime and tourist police raided the house in a housing estate in Lam Luk Ka district, where security guards had reported suspicious behaviour by a group of foreign residents. They were moving computers and other electronic devices into the house.
Upon arriving, police asked a Vietnamese person who came to the front door for permission to search before they spotted another foreigner running upstairs.
Police entered and found five other people working in front of computers. One of the seven Vietnamese was found to be staying without a passport, police said.
Multiple loan records were discovered on the computers, with one showing a principal of 8 million Vietnamese dong, or about 10,000 baht. The debtor was required to pay 265,000 dong (332 baht) per day over 40 instalments. This worked out to a 32.5% interest rate, which exceeds the legal limit, police said.
The suspects told police they worked as administrators of the online lending business, offering loans to people in Vietnam by advertising on Facebook.
They collected borrowers’ personal data, instructed them to delete their iCloud accounts on their phones and create new accounts, allowing the suspects to gain control of the phones.
If the debtors missed a payment, they would lock the account, making the devices inaccessible to their debtors, police said.
The suspects reportedly said the practice was a serious offence in Vietnam, so they moved to operate in Thailand, where such an operation is also illegal.
The Vietnamese, aged between 19 and 46, were taken into custody and would face charges of being members of a group with unlawful intent and working illegally as foreign nationals, according to Immigration Police Division 3.