Cyber police arrest Phuket native for selling big lots of personal data online
A Phuket resident was arrested on Saturday for allegedly selling more than 1 million sets of personal information to gambling websites and cyber scammers.
The personal information included names, phone numbers and bank account details.
Padungkiat Somsoo was arrested after Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB) officers raided his home in Phuket’s Muang district. The raid uncovered a large number of personal data belonging to other individuals and evidence proving the suspect ran an online gambling site, police said.
The suspect faces charges of violating the Computer Crime Act, Gambling Act and Personal Data Protection Act.
An earlier CCIB-led investigation found that Padungkiat had offered to sell personal data to a private Facebook group, which has some 100,000 followers.
On the group, he offered to sell 100,000 sets of personal data for 500 baht and 2 million sets for 3,500 baht. He also offered his services as administrator of gambling websites at the starting price of 6,500 baht a month, CCIB said.
The suspect reportedly told police that after completing this degree in computer engineering from a university in Phuket, he began working as an administrator for a gambling website last year. He said he then bought 2 million sets of personal data from a Facebook group for 8,000 baht and began selling it online.
He said he had quit his job as a gambling website administrator as he began making about 50,000 baht per month from his 20 or so customers over the past year.
He said he had learned that most of his customers were involved in online gambling websites and that some are cyber scammers duping people into transferring money to them.
The CCIB said it will use the information provided by the suspect to track down others involved in the scam.
