Thailand, Cambodia turn the heat on call-centre scammers, online gambling dens
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The Thai and Cambodian governments will sign a memorandum of understanding soon to crack down on call-centre scammers and operators of online gambling dens, the government spokesman said on Wednesday.
Thanakorn Wangboonkongchana said representatives of the two governments were in the process of consulting on the MOU draft that is aimed at promoting digital cooperation between the two countries.
He said the cooperation would focus on joint efforts to suppress call-centre gangs and online gambling operators.
Thanakorn said the discussions with Cambodia reflected the government’s stepped-up efforts to target scammers and online gambling websites following an order by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha.
The spokesman said Prayut had instructed all government agencies concerned to join forces to step up the crackdown.
Thanakorn said the Police Cyber Taskforce recently raided the operational base of a network of four gambling websites in Nonthaburi. The network had more than 200,000 clients with Bt200 million a month in circulation.
The spokesman said the Digital Economy and Society Ministry had also integrated its operations with other government agencies to suppress call-centre gangs and gambling websites.
The cooperation has led to the arrest of as many as 6,348 suspects covering 5,517 cases during the past year.
Owners of 344 bank accounts have also been arrested for allowing their accounts to be used by the gangsters. Thanakorn said the accounts have been used to inflict damages worth Bt569 million on victims.
He said the cooperation among government agencies also resulted in the closure of 742 URLs or gambling web addresses in the first three months of the year. The websites were blamed for causing damages worth Bt157 million to Thais.
Prayut had also instructed government agencies concerned to launch awareness campaigns so that people won’t fall victim to call-centre gangs again, Thanakorn added.
