Police in Thailand have arrested two Nigerian men and four Thai nationals for allegedly running romance scams and using mule accounts to funnel money to foreign criminal gangs.
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in a statement on Thursday, November 14, 2024, said that the arrests were part of the “Black Horse Down” operation, which was launched in October after it received complaints.
According to the statement, the gang has scammed people out of more than 50 million baht.
The Criminal Court issued eight arrest warrants, which led to police raids in five sites in Bangkok on October 8 and arrested five suspects, including three Thai women, one Thai man and a Nigerian man.
On Wednesday, the DSI’s Foreign Affairs and International Crimes Office learned that the sixth suspect, a Nigerian man identified as Christian (surname withheld), was in the custody of Immigration Police for visa violations.
The DSI took over the case and arranged for the suspect’s transfer to its facilities.
The accounts were also found linked to foreign gangs, including call centres, drug dealers and other romance scammers.
The suspects face charges of public fraud, uploading false information into a computer system and money laundering.
DSI said an investigation revealed that Christian was the head of the gang, which has more than 1,000 mule bank accounts through which transactions worth over 1.2 billion baht were made.
The DSI said it was tracking down the rest of the suspects and would coordinate with the Anti-Money Laundering Office to uncover other accomplices and criminal networks linked to the group.
The department has also warned people against opening bank accounts for other people in exchange for money or other benefits, as such actions violate the Emergency Decree on Measures for the Prevention and Suppression of Technological Crimes of 2023.
Violators can face up to three years in prison and/or 300,000 baht in fines.
