Six M'sians held in Bangkok over call-centre scam

BANGKOK: Thai police arrested six Malaysian men in separate raids on their hotel rooms here on suspicion of their being members of a 'call-centre scam' syndicate in the country.
Deputy Tourist Police chief Maj Gen Surachet Hakpan, who led the police raids, said one of the suspects was nabbed at a hotel in the Huai Kwang area late last night and the other five were picked up at a hotel in Sukhumvit Road at about 2 am (3 am Malaysian time) today.
"Following information from the arrest of a Malaysian man in the Huai Kwang hotel late last night, we managed to nab another five Malaysians in a follow-up operation in hotel rooms in Sukhumit Road," he told the media here today.
The police, according to him, confiscated various bank account books, credit cards, ATM cards and cash withdrawal receipts, mobile phone SIM cards, mobile phones and cash in Thai Baht as well as Malaysian Ringgit from the men.
Surachet said all the Malaysians travelled frequently to Thailand.
He also said that police investigation centred on one of the suspects who had gathered all the victims' money and transferred it to several bank accounts bearing Thai as well as Malaysian names.
The money was then remitted out of Thailand, he said, adding that the police discovered that about 1.2 million Baht (about RM153,000) had been taken out of the country.
He said the police would haul up Thai citizens whose names appear on the bank accounts used by the syndicate for investigation, especially on their probable involvement in the syndicate. — Bernama