The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) announced yesterday (July 9) that the Thung Song Provincial Court had passed sentence on the 70 defendants on May 22.
The huge, transnational scam was operated from a four-storey building in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat, reorts the Bangkok Post.
The case centred on the mass arrest of Thai and Chinese members of the call-centre gang - the largest such criminal network detected operating in the country to date, according to the DSI.
The police operation began in November 2023 after investigators uncovered evidence of the gang’s illegal transnational activities. One of the targeted premises was the four-storey, five-unit building with 22 separate rooms.
On Mar 28, 2024, officers from the DSI, Cybercrime Police Division, Immigration Bureau and the Department of Employment raided the building and other minor spots in Chawang district. They arrested 71 people, 52 Chinese and 19 Thais.
During the raid, police encountered Thai security guards on the ground floor of the building, the DSI said.
Police impounded 223 computers, 1,001 mobile phones, 14 iPads, 298 SIM cards and 86 bank accounts, along with illegally imported items found on the premises.
Investigators also uncovered internet chat boxes used to scam victims in Chinese, Japanese, Russian and Thai languages.
The passports of the Chinese suspects showed multiple trips to Cambodia. Some had overstayed in Thailand.
The case was handed over to the Cybercrime Investigation Division 5.
Seventy of suspects faced prosecution for fraud - 52 Chinese, 16 Thais and two juristic entities.
The court sentenced the gang leaders each to 24 years in prison, and others to lesser terms.
The 70 defendants were also ordered to repay money they scammed from two Japanese victims and had yet to return to them - one to receive ¥10,670,000, about B2.4 million, and the other ¥450,000, about B10,000.