Six Taiwanese arrested in Bangkok for illegal crypto trading

PCT chief Pol General Damrongsak Kittiprapat held a press conference on Tuesday to announce the arrest of the six Taiwanese.

Damrongsak, also a deputy National Police chief, said the suspects were arrested at a rented shophouse in Prawet district on Friday following a tip-off.

Damrongsak said the PCT and Immigration Bureau had been tipped-off that two Taiwanese men, who were wanted under arrest warrants in their country, were allegedly carrying out suspicious activities at the rented shophouse.

Police monitored their activities for a while and found that the suspects mostly stayed in the shophouse without going out, so police obtained a search warrant from the Phra Khanong District Court.

Police searched the rented shophouse and arrested the six suspects. Two of them had arrest warrants issued in Taiwan.

Police seized seven notebook computers and 45 mobile phones from the suspects.

Damrongsak said PCT investigators checked records on the notebooks and found that the suspects had deceived Taiwanese people to invest in cryptocurrency trading and lost their money. They were also charged with unlawfully carrying on an exchange business without licence.

Damrongsak said four suspects were charged with being immigrants working without work permit while the fifth suspect was charged with using narcotics. The sixth suspect was charged with overstaying his visa.

Immigration Police chief Pol Lt-General Phakphum Phipat said the six suspects would be deported after their cases were finalised and they had received due penalties.

Pol Lt-General Kitrat Phanphet, assistant National Police chief and deputy PCT chief, said the PCT has received 30,029 complaints from the people from March 1 to May 29 this year.

Most of the more than 10,000 complaints were about deceptions by online traders, he said.

He said 3,666 complaints were about being deceived to work online and not receiving pay as promised. He added that 1,371 complaints were about hybrid scams in which victims were lured to fall in love and then invest in online trading and lost their money.

There were also 294 complaints in which victims were lured to fall in love and transfer money to the scammers, Kitrat said.