Assistant Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Thai Police announced the launch of the largest operation to bomb the Thief Bridge in Thailand, arresting 2 suspects along with evidence of simboxes, mobile phones and over ten thousand registered SIM cards.
On October 9, 2024, Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai Pitaneelabut, Assistant Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police (Assistant Commissioner-General of the Royal Thai Police), Pol. Lt. Gen. Jiraphop Phuridet, Commander of the Central Investigation Bureau (Chief of the Royal Thai Police), Pol. Maj. Gen. Montree Thesakan, Commander of the Crime Suppression Division (Chief of the Royal Thai Police), along with the Crime Suppression Division 1, the Crime Suppression Division, the Crime Suppression Division, and the Technology Crime Suppression Division jointly announced the opening of the operation to bomb the bandit bridge by arresting 2 suspects who are representatives of the network (Retailer) and seizing tens of thousands of registered simboxes, mobile phones, and S
IM cards.
For today’s operation to bomb the bandit bridge, officials inspected 4 locations, including: Location 1, house number 538/1, Soi Happyland Townhouse 4, Khlong Chan Subdistrict, Bang Kapi District, Bangkok, where 28 Simboxes (activated), Thai SIM cards from all networks, totaling approximately 10,000 SIM cards, were found. Mr. Thiraphon is the caretaker. The house is a 2-story house. Upon entering the house on the ground floor, evidence of SimBoxes and many mobile SIM cards were found. Two suspects were found: a 68-year-old Thai man who owns the house and a 33-year-old Chinese man who is the system administrator.
Point 2, house number 964, Sindhorn Village, Khlong Chan Subdistrict, Bang Kapi District, Bangkok, found 20 simboxes and approximately 2,000 activated Thai SIM cards.
Point 3: A condo building B, 6th floor, room number 562/52, Khlong Tan Subdistrict, Bueng Kum District, Bangkok, found 5 Simbox machines, approximately 370 mobile phones, and approximately 6,000 activated Thai SIM cards. The
caretaker was Mr. Chuanguan Lin or Xiaolin, a Chinese national.
Point 4: A condo building B, 7th floor, room number 562/68, Khlong Tan Subdistrict, Bueng Kum District, Bangkok, found 39 Simboxes, 103 mobile phones, approximately 20 activated Thai SIM cards, related documents, and some Yuan (Chinese) banknotes.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai said that this was the largest raid in Thailand, which was to cut off the call center gang that was trying to deceive Thai people. From the raid, 100 SimBoxes with 20,000 phone numbers were seized, which could make about 3,000 calls per call.
The methods of the criminals are still the same. They live in neighboring countries and avoid foreign numbers such as +67 +68, which are based in Thailand. When calling the victim, the phone number will be a Thai number (+66), causing the victim to not hesitate to answer the phone. However, if the SIM card is closed or expired, they can change to a new number to scam the next time.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Thatchai said that after this, there will b
e discussions with the NBTC about measures for registering mobile phone numbers with more than 5 registered SIMs, and there will be an expansion of this process, including checking the people who register SIM cards.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Jiraphop said that today, there were 4 locations searched. The discovery of a large number of SIM cards and mobile devices this time is considered to be breaking the cycle of the call center gang because there was a lot of evidence seized. However, it is believed that there are still masterminds in this operation. After this, there will be further investigation.
From the investigation, the 68-year-old Thai man admitted to owning the house. Before this, he worked as a phone SIM card seller, so he had knowledge about phone numbers. He had been in this profession for about 5 years. He would register over 10,000 SIM numbers under his name, receiving 2 baht per number in return. He obtained the SIMs from buying them from an agent. However, the authorities believe that the 68-year-old Th
ai man was responsible for taking care of the SimBox system, while the Chinese man took care of the system and set it up so that it could continue to operate.
Initially, there were 2 charges: ‘Procuring, advertising or disseminating news in any way to buy or sell telephone numbers for mobile phone services which are registered as users in the name of a person but the user cannot be identified’ Section 11, fine of 200,000-500,000 baht, imprisonment of 2-5 years, and jointly making, using, importing, exporting or trading radio communication equipment without permission from the licensing officer, jointly setting up radio communication stations without permission from the licensing officer, jointly using radio frequencies to conduct telecommunications business’.
Source: Thai News Agency