TAK — Highway Police arrested three Chinese suspected of being call center gang on Monday as they were carrying 2,000 mobile phone SIM cards.
Pol. Lt. Col. Sathit Samanphap, Superintendent of the 5th Highway Police Station, led a team on a mission on the Sukhothai-Tak Road at kilometer 109, on June 10. They noticed a suspicious Toyota Altis driving past at high speed, so they pursued the vehicle in a police car until they reached the area of Nam Ruem Subdistrict, Mueang Tak District and signaled for the car to stop for inspection.
The driver was a 53-year-old Thai man named Narong Sunanta. The three passengers were all Chinese: Mr. Hai Yang, 25 years old; Mr. Chen Yong Liang, 31 years old; and Mr. Lin Chen, 31 years old. None of them had passports or personal identification documents.
The officers also found more than 2,000 unused foreign mobile phone SIM cards and 5 mobile phones, raising suspicions that they may be involved in a call center gang network. The items were seized as evidence.
Narong confessed that he had picked up the group of Chinese individuals from a resort in Sukhothai Province to take them to Mae Sot District, Tak Province, for a fee of 3,000 baht per trip. He had done this 2-3 times before.
The Chinese individuals claimed that they had traveled from Cambodia by plane, landing at Suvarnabhumi Airport. A friend then picked them up and took them to a hotel near the airport. The next day, someone came to take them to Mae Sot so they could continue their journey to Myanmar. As for the mobile phone SIM cards, they claimed that they did not own them but that a friend had put them in the car.
The highway police officers then brought all the suspects to Mueang Tak Police Station to proceed with charges of illegal entry into the country.
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