Thailand Raids Three Chinese Fraud Suspects Said to Have Made RMB 2 Million in First Month

On October 23, Bangkok’s Metropolitan Police Bureau and several other agencies raided a house in Chatuchak district, arresting three Chinese nationals suspected of posing as legal advisers to commit cross-border fraud. Police identified the suspects as Zhang Hailong, 38, Liu Chunyin, 29, and Wu Zhiqiang, 32, members of a call-centre fraud group. Since October 2014, they had allegedly deceived victims by posing as legal advisers, making about THB 10 million, equivalent to around RMB 2 million, in their first month and continuing to profit each month thereafter. Their methods included offering to charge 5% of compensation after a case was closed as a lure, using multilingual forms and social media to target people from countries including China, Spain and the United Kingdom, and hiring a Thai woman to forge a house rental contract. They rented the property for THB 30,000 a month as an operating base. During the raid, police seized four Phone Farm devices, four desktop computers, four laptops, 42 mobile phones, five routers, one portable Wi-Fi device and other equipment related to the alleged offences. Police said the case remained under investigation and that they would trace money flows and other possible participants to thoroughly combat the cross-border fraud group. Compiled report by this station