PATHUM THANI — An elderly and wealthy woman in Kanchanaburi province, who had been a supplier management specialist at a prestigious college in the United States, was scammed and lost 200 million baht (5.4 million USD).
Cyber police investigated the case and found 76 persons involved, acting as mule account holders across the country. They collected evidence and applied for 69 arrest warrants at Nonthaburi Provincial Court, with 7 suspects turning themselves in.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Worawat Watnakornbancha, commander of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), said the woman was deceived by a group posing as government officials who falsely accused her of money laundering and threatened her to transfer money for verification. She believed them and transferred money to the criminals’ accounts 115 times, resulting in a loss of over 200 million baht.
Then, he sent the task force with an arrest warrant from Nonthaburi Provincial Court to apprehend Mr. Sombat Kaewmani, 31, a resident of Pathum Thani province. Mr. Sombat was one of the members of the gang who had opened the accounts for the money transfers.
The cyber police launched Operation “SAVING GOOD MAN” to dismantle this global call center fraud network. In the process, 40 suspects were arrested and 29 others are still being pursued. Mr. Sombat was arrested in the Khlong Sip Song area in Bangkok’s Nong Chok district.
He was charged with “conspiracy to defraud the public, conspiracy to impersonate another person to defraud, conspiracy to enter false data into a computer system whereby the public could be harmed, and allowing others to use their bank accounts, electronic cards or e-wallets without the intent to use them for their own purposes, knowing or having knowledge that they would be used for technological or other criminal offenses.”
Pol. Lt. Gen. Worawat added that during interrogation, Mr. Sombat confessed that he had applied for an online job via Facebook in late 2023. Someone contacted him, offering a salary of 8,000-12,000 baht. He was then picked up from Khlong Paet, Lam Luk Ka District, Pathum Thani, and taken to Poipet, Cambodia, via an illegal natural border crossing at Aranyaprathet District, Sa Kaeo Province.
When he reached the border, an intermediary took him through a warehouse and across a river on a makeshift foam raft to a 25-story building in Poipet, near the Thai border. Mr. Sombat worked at the call center for about six months and was confined to the designated area. His job was to open bank accounts and scan his face for transactions of more than 50,000 baht to transfer money to other accounts.
He was paid 4,000 baht to open an account and 1,000 baht a day for face scans, with higher payments depending on the transaction amount. He eventually decided to flee back to Thailand before he was arrested by the police.
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