M'sia extradites eight Thai 'Macau Scam' suspects

BANGKOK: Malaysian authorities extradited eight Thai nationals who were arrested during a raid on a Taiwanese-led "Macau Scam" operations in Penang last month.
Deputy Tourist Police chief Maj Gen Surachet Hakpal said, the eight suspects whose gender were unknown arrived home yesterday and would be facing multiple charges related to public fraud, conspiracy and transnational organised crime.
"We (Thai Police) requested to the Malaysian authorities to send the eight (Thai nationals) back, so that they could be prosecuted in Thailand," he said here, adding that if convicted all of them could be spending up to 15 years in prison.
On June 5 last month, Malaysian and Thai Police conducted a joint raid on a hillside bungalow in Penang and nabbed 10 Thai nationals and two Taiwanese men, whom the authorities believed masterminded the "Macau Scam" operations.
Most of the 10 Thai suspects, comprising five men and five women came from Songkla and Sukhothai provinces.
The Taiwanese-led syndicates had turned the posh two-storey bungalow in Penang as the base of their scamming activities. The joint raid also seized communication equipment, mobile phones and account books used by the syndicates.
According to Surachet, who headed Thai Police taskforce on electronic fraud, last month's raid in the island state was the third successful joint-raid conducted by both police forces in Malaysia, after similar operations in January and February this year.
From the three joint raids in Malaysia, 33 suspects from Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia were nabbed.
He also said, authorities in Thailand had returned 23.6 million Baht (about RM2.8 million) to 117 victims of "Macau Scam" from 455 cases related to the crime from December last year until July 2018.
Thai Police estimated monetary losses suffered by Thai victims from the scam during the same period from December 2017 until July this year was 249.13 million Baht (RM31 million). — Bernama