Thailand cybercrime: Police get 5,600-plus complaints in a single week
The Police Cyber Taskforce (PCT) received more than 5,600 complaints of fraud and deception with damages worth more than 476 million baht in a mere week, a senior officer said.
Pol General Sompong Chingduang, who leads a taskforce that issues cybercrime warnings, said on Wednesday that 5,644 complaints had been submitted between May 30 and June 3. The number of complaints had risen by 842 from the previous week and the value of damages had risen by 51 million baht.
Though the PCT allows the public to submit their complaints via its website, the complainants are also required to visit their closest police station to answer relevant questions. Failure to do this will result in the complaints being rejected.
Sompong said the top five complaints remained the same as in the previous week:
• Fake goods and services: 3,074 complaints, 36 million baht in damages
• Fees for fake part-time jobs: 720 complaints, 90 million baht in damages
• Loans that were never paid back: 558 cases, 22 million baht in damages
• Call-centre gangs intimidating people into transferring money: 267 complaints, 80 million baht in damages
• Fake online investments: 224 complaints, 105 million baht in damages
Meanwhile, Pol Maj-General Chusak Kanadnil, who leads the Police High-Tech Crime Division, said on Wednesday that the most popular con is posting job ads on Facebook.
Once the victim contacts the person listed in the advertisement for a job, the victim is asked to speak to them on the Line app. The victim is then asked to add another person to the conversation, who says the job has been taken but offers the victim an opportunity to make investments for a 20% return.
The victim is initially lured into investing 100 baht, which results in a payback of 130 baht – higher than the 20% return promised.
The victim is then encouraged to deposit 300 baht, which results in them getting 390 baht back.
By now the victim is hooked and agrees to invest 800 baht for a return of 960 baht.
This time, however, the victim is unable to withdraw and is told that they must invest six more times to be able to withdraw. The amount invested has to be doubled every time.
After six investments, the victim will again find themselves unable to withdraw anything. The conman will tell them that there was either an error in the system, the investment was not recorded or more money is required.
The conman will cite various technical reasons for not returning the money, and will eventually block the victim from the Line chat, Chusak said.
