Police are gathering evidence to back requests for arrest warrants for more than 100 Thai nationals believed to have been hired to open bank accounts for call centre gangs, Tourist Police Division deputy chief Surachet Hakphal said yesterday.
The move came after a major crackdown on a call centre gang in Malaysia.
Two Thai men, Ke Soonklang, 39, and Atthakrit Lachiangkhong, 23, were rescued in the operation jointly carried out by the Royal Thai Police (RTP) and their Malaysian counterpart at a condominium in Kuala Lumpur.
Forty suspects were arrested in the raid on the gang that had lured the two men to work by pretending it had restaurant jobs for them in Malaysia.
Upon arriving there the two men were forced to con Thai victims through the call centre gang, Pol Maj Gen Surachet said on Sunday, adding the two men were in the care of the consular section of the Thai embassy in Malaysia.
They are being treated as witnesses in the criminal case now being probed by Malaysian authorities.
In response to media reports that some call centre gangs have turned to laundering money received from victims using Bitcoin, Pol Maj Gen Surachet said yesterday the police had already proposed the government come up with legal measures to control use of the cryptocurrency in Thailand.
Thailand has not accepted any cryptocurrencies as legal tender and that made it harder to monitor the case, he said.
This week, however, the authority is drafting a law that forces companies that deal in Bitcoin to reveal dubious transactions.
Police can only seek cooperation from five companies handling Bitcoin transactions in Thailand, he said. They can be asked to suspend transactions from parties suspected of being involved in call centre gangs, he added.
Meanwhile, the RTP's centre for suppression and prevention of telephone-based and electronic fraud yesterday interviewed 16 more victims of call centre gangs involving a total of 3.2 million baht seized from the gangs.
Peerasak Ingpongpan, director of Litigation Division 1 of the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo), warned the public over an emerging form of fraud, in which fake subpoenas are sent to potential victims demanding they submit important documents for inspection in regard to drug or money-laundering cases.
The requested documents include land title deeds and bank accounts, he said, adding that anyone who has received fake subpoenas is encouraged to alert Amlo on its hotline 1710.
