Thai police have followed recent announcements about inspecting cell sites near the border and closing those which serve scam call centers with yet more news about raids on fraudsters. Both police and customs officials shared information over the weekend that described a series of operations which targeted separate locations spread throughout Thailand, leading to multiple arrests of both Thais and foreigners. Some of these locations had simboxes that appeared to have already been used to make scam calls. Other locations appeared to be way stations for the onward transportation of imported equipment. This equipment included Starlink satellite dishes, with the assumption that these would provide internet connectivity to scam compounds in bordering countries. The police noted how the use of Starlink would permit gangsters to keep changing the location of scam compounds, further complicating the task of law enforcement. Obtaining internet access from low earth orbit satellites not only means gangsters can guarantee reliable internet connections for scam compounds in remote regions, but also negates the enhanced anti-scam controls that have been implemented by traditional internet service providers. The Thai authorities have been working for several years to disconnect internet cables that cross the border to service scam compounds in neighboring countries.
Several separate anti-scam operations were conducted by police and customs officers during April and May.
- Following a tip about imported equipment and SIM cards that was received by customs officials, a coordinated search was conducted during May of 14 locations spread across central, Eastern, Western, Northern and Northeastern regions of Thailand. This yielded four Starlink dishes, 96 simboxes, 27,019 SIM cards for telcos in Hong Kong, and 6,770 SIM cards for Thai telcos. Police believe that Chinese gangsters are connected to these imports. Six arrests were made, but all the suspects claimed innocence by asserting that a friend or acquaintance had only asked them to provide a name and address for use when delivering the goods.
- Customs officials seized imported call center equipment during April estimated to be worth more than THB5mn (USD140,000), including 26 Starlink dishes, prompting a follow-on operation that targeted the addresses the equipment was ultimately meant to be delivered to. The subsequent operation in May raided five locations in Chiang Mai province and one in Chiang Rai province. These provinces lie in Northern Thailand and have borders with Myanmar. Two of the locations already housed considerable amounts of imported equipment designed for relaying mobile telephony and internet signals, including portable antennae, wifi signal extenders, and LAN cables. 50 pairs of handcuffs were also found at one of the locations. A total of five Myanmar nationals were arrested during these raids, four of whom are accused of illegally possessing radio equipment, and one of whom is accused of being an illegal immigrant. None of the accused claimed to know what the Starlink dishes were for; some said they were only intending to take delivery on behalf of somebody else.
- Three Vietnamese citizens were arrested during May in conjunction with the use of six imported simboxes from a location in Phai Tam, 90km north of Bangkok. Each of the simboxes is estimated to cost around THB120,000 (USD3,200). Two of the Vietnamese are believed to be illegal immigrants. The other admitted that he had been hired by gangsters and paid a monthly fee to run the simboxes from a room he rented out.
It is understandable why the police would release all this information at once. They seek to create a deterrence effect whilst reassuring the public that steps are being taken to protect them from scammers, even if those scammers are working from compounds in neighboring Cambodia or Myanmar. However, linking these cases will likely cause confusion amongst journalists and the public who are not familiar with the details of how organized criminals use telecoms networks to commit crime. It looks like some of these raids intercepted equipment before they had been used to establish or extend scam call centers in Myanmar. That is a great victory; it is better to shut down scammers before they can even begin their illegal work. The use of Starlink for these scam compounds is alarming because it demonstrates the lengths to which organized criminals will go to put scam call centers in remote places where police may lack local intelligence or jurisdiction. Other countries should learn from the tactics adopted by Thailand’s customs and police officials. Laws and law enforcement should place greater emphasis on preventing the importation of equipment that is almost never used for legal purposes, instead of always waiting for scammers to begin their work before trying to detect and obstruct it. On the other hand, Thailand’s preemptive approach did not succeed in the case of the three Vietnamese arrested just outside the country’s capital. They appear to have already set up a more familiar form of relay station, where they were originating calls on mobile networks within Thailand as the final leg of communications that also involved a VoIP connection to a scam compound located elsewhere, possibly in another country.
It is the trans-national nature of telecoms scams that make them so attractive to organized crime syndicates. The victims are in a different country to the people breaking the law, with the result that local police have less incentive to act. Only low-level stooges tend to get caught, whilst the criminal masterminds that orchestrate these scams remain out of reach. To make matters worse, telcos like getting paid for international traffic, and have historically exhibited little interest in questioning the identity and motives of customers. Those of us who remember the early days of GSM gateways being abused will recall there were people in mainstream mobile operators who liked selling to simbox crooks who were defrauding our telcos because many of these crooks bought in very large bulk and paid their telco bills on time. The fall in the cost of making international calls and the ease with which automation can be used to program the origination of traffic carried over the internet has led to a perfect storm of fraud. Despite this, many act as if nothing has fundamentally changed. They fail to see why short-term tactical changes in fraud prevention methods cannot sufficiently address the systematic technological shift that favors the criminals who harm consumers through the abuse of networks.
One way we can successfully close the gap on organized crime is by denying them the freedom to ship the imported equipment they need to wherever they please. We have to keep stretching the reach of law enforcement through a holistic strategy for scam prevention that uses all the powers that can be exercised in protecting the public from harm, instead of narrowly focusing on a few favored methods of detecting criminal activity after it has already occurred. Some people may think it is intellectually stimulating fun to set up AI/ML systems that identify anomalies in data but the subject is crime that can have a devastating impact on the lives of victims and on the modern-day slaves forced to work in scam compounds. Diligent work by customs inspectors at the border can potentially spare a lot of people from a lot of harm. Thailand is demonstrating the merits of a more expansive response to scams. The use of highly portable Starlink dishes that can provide internet access in remote regions shows how very far criminals are prepared to go to evade the long arm of the law.
The Royal Thai Police announcement about these anti-scam raids can be found here, and some associated photographs circulated by police and customs officials are presented below.
