Police crackdown on call centres nets one of their own

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From Thai PBS World

Thai cybercrime police, working with the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission and internet and mobile phone service providers, have launched a joint operation, codenamed “Blasting the Bandit’s Bridge”, to crack down on call centre scam gangs in Myanmar and Laos, operating in the King’s Roman entertainment complex, located in the Golden Triangle.

According to Pol Lt-Gen Tatchai Pitanilabutr, the assistant national police chief, the King’s Roman complex contains casinos, hotels, other entertainment venues and an airport to handle tourists from Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and China.

The complex and its surrounding areas are known as safe havens for scammers, particularly Chinese, operating call centres defrauding victims in Thailand and China. Thais and other nationalities have been lured by promises of high pay to work in casinos, hotels and other entertainment establishments, but were eventually forced to work as slave labour in call centres.

Pol Lt-Gen Tatchai said that the officials will use special signal jamming devices to disrupt internet and phone traffic sent to the area, but with limited impacts on legitimate service users, adding that mobile phone service providers will also cut the signals of suspicious phone numbers.

He noted that telecom cables should be confined within Thai territory and should not be extended into neighbouring countries, which would be helping the illegal activities of the call centres.

The assistant police chief warned that SIM card retail outlets, which sell SIM cards without proper registration, could face legal action and be banned from selling them again.

Commenting on a report that some scammers have resorted to the use of the Starlink service, to bypass ordinary mobile phone services, Tatchai said the Starlink service is not as stable as the use of SIM cards with the mobile phone services provided by the four existing providers.

Meanwhile, in Chiang Mai province, police have arrested a Hang Dong district police officer, Pol Lt-Col “Bandhit”, who allegedly ran a call centre in the province.

“Bandhit” was booked early this morning at a temple, where he entered monkhood in an attempt to evade arrest. He was rapidly defrocked and escorted to Chang Phuek police station for questioning.

The suspect claimed that he was just a member of the call centre, which was actually run by Chinese businessmen.