Standover Gang Scam By Phone

November 16, 2013

Police arrested 8- members of an alleged ‘call center gang’ claiming they were from the Legal Execution Department of police and attorneys, then threatening that if their victims did not pay outstanding debts immediately, they would be arrested, sued in court and face seizure of their property

BANGKOK – November 15th, 2013 [PDN]; – At 10.30 am. in the Metropolitan Police Division-8, Police Lt. Gen. Khamronwit Thoopkrajarng (Commissioner), together with Police Maj. Gen. Chayuth Thanathaweerat, Police Maj. Gen. Charnthep Sesawate (Deputy Commissioner), Police Maj. Gen. Ratsadakorn Yingyong (Commander) and Police Col. Pornchai Chalordech (Commander) jointly made a statement about the arresting 8-criminals of a ‘call center gang.’ This gang consisted of Mr. Kiettisak Saengjinda aged 33, (the head of gang), M/s. Kessarin Sae-eng aged 19, M/s. Charida Deenoy aged 25, M/s. Arisa Phoodphong aged 23, M/s. Sukanda Phuangphermsap aged 26, M/s. Noochanart Nukit aged 34, Mr. Bancha Doonkoksoong aged 36 and Mr. Ratthaphol Sri-ngern aged 34, who are to be prosecuted with the allegation of conspiring together to threaten and / or cheat people. They were arrested with exhibits consisting of 8-mobile phones and 9-notebooks that listed the names, surnames, addresses and the mobile phone numbers of their victims. The police arrested them in a commercial building at 52 Phraram-2 Road, Soi-1, Jomthong sub-district in the Jomthong district of Bangkok.

Police Maj. Gen. Ratsadakorn said that this arrest was due to Mr. Kiettisak establishing the “Maximum Collection Co. Ltd.” in order to accelerate debt collection by threatening and pressing claims against their victims. Mr. Kiettisak pretended to be the attorney and said that the other (criminal defendants) were his employees, which were assigned as the officers of car sales finance and credit card businesses. The alleged criminal defendants would gain lists of information of their victims that had debts and in their records they had almost 1,000 victims listed. Then they made phone calls to the victims and claimed that they were the officers of the Legal Execution Department of polices and attorneys and threatened them to hurry up to pay for debts. They then told the victims that if they didn’t clear their debts, they would be issued with an arrest warrant and be sued in the courts, resulting in prosecution and seizure of their property. This caused the debtors to be afraid of them, so they rushed to pay off debts to the ‘call center gang.’ However, there were 10-victims that came to notify the police at Bangmod Police Station, but the police believe that there were hundreds of victims caught in this scam, with most of the victims living in up country Thailand.

Mrs. Thassanee Thadchai aged 39, who is an employee of a private company in the Bangmod area, told the police that the ‘call center gang’ had made a phone call to the ‘Village Head’ on October 25th, 2013 and left their phone number for her to call them back. They informed the ‘Village Head’ that Mrs. Thassanee was being prosecuted in an allegation of embezzling a mobile phone, that she was buying by installments for her friend. The price was 12,000 THB (Thai baht) over the past 7-years, but she didn’t know whether her friend had made the full payment or not and after she called back the ‘call center gang,’ she was threatened to pay the debt immediately. She didn’t know how this gang knew her identity card number and details of the mobile phone that she was buying over the last 7-years so she was afraid that she would be prosecuted then unemployed. She hurried to pay the money for the debt immediately the ‘call center gang’ told her to make the payment at a convenience store and also told her to let the staff of the store talk with them (the ‘call center gang’) on the mobile phone when she arrived at the store. Accordingly, she made the payment at the convenience store in area of Bangmod for 12,636 THB, but she didn’t think that she had been cheated, because the information about her debt that the ‘call center gang’ told her was all correct so she believed that they told the truth and made the payment as they requested.

Police Lt. Col. Sakdech said that from investigation, the police knew that this company of alleged criminal defendants bought the information of debtors from the credit card and cars finance companies then proceeded to press the claims and threaten their victims by claiming that they were police, attorneys and officers of the Legal Execution Department. This made the debtors very afraid of them and as they believed them, they hurried to pay for debts within 1-day. This ‘call center gang’ of debt collectors would get commission from the debt payments at the rate of 25%, but as well as the threatened victims that were actual debtors, there were victims that were cheated as they had already paid for all of their debts, which made this a criminal activity. The “Maximum Collection Co. Ltd.” had operated this illegal business for 2-years and Mr. Kiettisak is the person who had established this company and M/s. Kessarin was the employee of their ‘human resources department’ and was responsible for paying the daily wages to the other alleged criminal defendants. Any other people, who are the victims of this ‘call center gang’ can notify the Bangmod Police Station so that additional prosecutions against these alleged criminal defendants can be made at Bangmod in Bangkok.