Alleged teen Chinese call-centre gang head arrested in Bangkok

A Chinese youth was arrested in Bangkok and eight devices allegedly used for making Internet calls to deceive people seized from him.

The raid was carried out on Wednesday by a special team of investigators from the Metropolitan Police Bureau led by Pol Colonel Pornthawee Somwong, commander of Hua Mark Police Station.

They raided an apartment on Ramkhamhaeng Soi 24/3 in Hua Mark subdistrict of Bang Kapi district at 7.45am.
Pornthawee said police arrested Minhong Tan, 19, who rented the room.

Minhong denied charges of being a call-centre gang leader, saying he was simply working as a broker of rented apartments in Bangkok for Chinese tourists to sub-rent. Police found several room rent contracts with him.

Pornthawee said the raid was carried out under a search warrant issued on Tuesday by the Criminal Court.

He said the special team of the bureau had conducted an investigation for a month after a victim in Buri Ram province filed a complaint with police that he had lost 10,600 baht to a call-centre gang.

The investigation found that the fraudulent calls were made from the rented room in Bangkok.

Pornthawee said Minhong used a student visa to enter Thailand and he also rented 10 other rooms in Bangkok.

He said the seized items from the room included eight Sim boxes, two routers, one switching hub, and one power storage system.

A SIM box is a device that allows call-centre gangs to make a large number of calls using a small number of SIM cards. This is done by routing calls through a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) network, which is much cheaper than using traditional phone lines.  

SIM boxes are often used by scammers to make fraudulent calls, such as those claiming to be from the government or a bank. They may also be used to make harassing or abusive calls.

Minhong was charged with importing and possessing telecom devices without a licence and operating a telecom broadcasting station without a licence.