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BANGKOK: Scammers, allegedly led by a yakuza gang member, have cheated Japanese retirees out of more than 300 million baht in just two months.
Thai police have arrested five Japanese men suspected of scamming victims in Japan from a call centre in Chonburi province, the Royal Thai Police’s Immigration Bureau said in a press event on Wednesday (Dec 18).
The arrests were made during a raid on two houses in Pattaya City earlier this week, from where officials confiscated 42 items of computers, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, as well as what appeared to be a list of potential victims containing over 50,000 names.
Pol Col Rathachote Chotikhun, deputy chief investigator of the Immigration Bureau, said officials received a tip off from one of members who escaped from the gang in Chonburi to the Embassy of Japan in Bangkok.
The tipster said that the gang moved from Malaysia to Thailand on September 29 to run a scamming operation on retirees in Japan.
According to him, the gang would call senior citizens in Japan, promising to return their social security contribution if they transferred 500,000 yen (111,514 baht) via ATM to the gang’s accounts as a transaction fee.
The gang made over 300 million baht from the victims in just two months of running the operation in Thailand, the whistleblower said.
Rathachote said the investigation revealed that the gang leader is a member of Yamakuchi, a prominent yakuza gang established in Japan over 100 years ago.
Police also found that the call centre was linked to an entertainment venue and a sauna business in Bangkok, possibly to launder the money.
Investigators are looking into Thai owners of said businesses to check if they are nominees for the gang. - The Nation/ANN
