Devious schemes of telephone tricksters | Bangkok Post: news

Devious schemes of telephone tricksters

Scammers posed as dangerous kidnappers to lure cash

Phone scam gangs are using new tricks to deceive victims although many are not sophisticated and are nothing more than extortion rackets, police said.

Victims may not be necessarily called by gangsters claiming to be staff of recognised banks or officials from the Anti-Money Laundering Office as they were in the past, in their plots to lure them into wiring money to them.

In one case, Yomphon Chitbanthao was contacted by a con man who bluntly demanded she transfer money to his gang if she wanted them to release her son, whom he said they had kidnapped.

It was all a lie intended to fool the victim.

The gang members still use the telephone as a principle tool, but their tactics vary, Pol Maj Krit Worathat, a police inspector of the Crime Suppression Division, said.

Ms Yomphon, a vendor at MBK shopping centre, said she thought the threat was real because the gang member who phoned her on Feb 7 said her 16-year-old son owed them 600,000 baht.

She transferred the money as demanded only to learn later she had been fooled when her son returned home without any knowledge of any debt or the so-called abduction.

Ms Yomphon asked the bank to freeze her money but by the time she did so the gang had already taken 200,000 baht from her account.

Police said the gang member who phoned her was convincing. He talked her into revealing her son's name, then threatened to cut off his limbs if she refused to pay money. During the conversation, another gang member mimicked a voice crying for help in the background.

Ms Yomphon hastily transferred the money to the gang, Pol Maj Krit said.

Her complaint to police led to the arrest of three of seven suspects.

Pol Maj Krit's team quickly obtained the name of the first suspect, Suphot Phrombut, whose name was connected to the Bangkok Bank account to which the money was transferred.

The arrest and interrogation of Mr Suphot led to the arrest of his suspected accomplice, Phonthep Wachirakomon, who allegedly admitted he hired Mr Suphot to open the account.

The police investigators learned from their accounts that another key member of the gang was A-khwa Sae Li, who was in Chiang Rai.

Mr A-khwa was the person who allegedly withdrew money from an ATM at the Krung Thai Bank branch at Mae Fah Luang hospital.

However, Pol Maj Krit said, the arrest of Mr A-khwa was not easy. Although police obtained footage of his face from a security camera, the man rarely appeared in public, he said.

For days, police staked out a particular spot where they believed Mr A-khwa was, but he continued to lay low.

Finally, Pol Maj Krit's team decided to lure him out in a sting operation by telling Mr Suphot to phone him to ask for money to open new bank accounts for further scams.

Mr A-khwa went out to his regular ATM and was arrested by police early last week.

The suspect allegedly admitted he withdrew the money and was able to keep 10% of it. However, he denied any involvement in the phone scam.

Mr A-khwa claimed he was asked to withdraw the money by Piyaphong Ariyanon, 22, who was alleged to be the gang leader, and two women _ Wiphawi Sae Chao, 28, and Nittaya Sae Chao, 22 _ and Mrs Nittaya's husband, whose name has been withheld.

Pol Maj Krit has asked the court to issue warrants for the arrests of the group members.

The Crime Suppression Division says it is serious in cracking down on phone scam gangs. But Pol Maj Krit conceded that more of the same type of criminal rackets will continue to operate using new tricks to prey on innocent victims even if all the gang members that cheated Ms Yomphon were arrested.

"They can use tricks and psychological ploys to confuse and easily fool the victims into paying," said Pol Maj Krit, warning people to be careful when they receive telephone calls from strangers.