Eleven people, four of them Pattaya bank employees, have been arrested on charges of helping Chinese scammers falsify documents used to open bank accounts.
The arrests were announced by Pol Gen Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, inspector-general at the Royal Thai Police, on Wednesday,
He said the suspects included the manager of a bank branch on Pattaya Klang Road in tambon Nong Phrue of Bang Lamung district, Chon Buri province, and three other employees at the bank.
The four were taken to Bang Lamung police station on Tuesday and are alleged to have helped Chinese nationals involved in a scam network open bank accounts. Two other suspects. who were interpreters, were also arrested. Names of the suspects were not disclosed.
Pol Gen Thatchai, director of the RTP’s cyber crime investigation centre, said police also arrested five Chinese suspects involved in the scam network.
The Chinese suspects had taken 15 compatriots to open accounts at the bank branch on Pattaya Klang. The 15 Chinese were scammers and had arrived in Thailand in March this year on tourist visas, Pol Gen Thatchai said.
Police had evidence the 15 scammers had opened bank accounts on March 9 and returned to China on March 15. The bank manager and the three other bank staff had colluded in falsifying documents to help them open the accounts, Pol Gen Thatchai said.
He declined to reveal how much money the four bank staff received in return their assistance.
According to police investigators, about 118 million baht was transferred to the 15 bank accounts of the 15 suspects, who later withdrew 91 million baht.
Authorities later confiscated the 15 bank accounts after victims who had been duped into paying money into the accounts filed complaints.
The Chinese scammers were also involved with 462 mule accounts across the country, with victims in 2,084 cases. The scam gang caused damages totalling more than 2.2 billion baht, Pol Gen Thatchai said.
Police were coordinating with Chinese authorities, and had requested they arrest the 15 Chinese scammers, he said.
Pol Gen Thatchai Pitaneelaboot, inspector-general of the Royal Thai Police, centre, briefs reporters about the arrest of 11 suspects, including four bank staff in Pattaya, for helping Chinese scammers launder money. (Photo supplied/Wassayos Ngamkham)
