At least 26 Chinese nationals were arrested in Thailand during a raid on a loan-sharking business operating from a luxury pool villa near Pattaya, media reports said.
The raid was conducted in an upscale housing project in a nation that attracts a large number of tourists from across the world every year.
The single-storey structure was surrounded by a fence and surveillance cameras, reported Bangkok Post.
Authorities found 25 Chinese men and a woman inside the house.
According to reports, they entered Thailand on a tourist or student visa and did not have a proper work permit.
These people operated an online lending business and targeted Chinese people staying outside Thailand.
They admitted to police that they had been lending money at a monthly interest rate of 60%, reported Bangkok Post.
Several Items Seized
Two laptops, 52 mobile phones, 77 sheets of Chinese-language accounting documents and 80,300 baht in cash were seized from them.
They have been charged with operating a credit business without a licence, being foreign nationals engaging in an occupation without permission and working without work permits, the newspaper reported.
Two of the Chinese nationals were additionally charged for overstaying on their visas.
Latest Chinese scam in India
Last month, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) arrested an alleged mastermind of the Chinese app investment fraud case.
The accused was identified as Rohit Vij.
Sharing details about the crime, the ED had said in a statement: “ED initiated investigation on the basis of FIR registered by the PS Cyber Crime, Hyderabad in the year 2022, wherein it was alleged that certain Chinese individuals, in association with certain Indian persons have defrauded various investors by luring and offering unrealistically high returns on investments through their fake investment app named as ‘LOXAM’, claiming to be related to a reputed French MNC Group of the same name.”
“ED investigation revealed that the tainted money was collected in the bank account of a shell entity M/s Xindai Technologies Pvt. Ltd., which was formed in the name of an Indian person, on the instructions of a Chinese national namely Mr. Jack, who took the Internet Banking credentials and routed the funds so collected through 38 mule accounts, which were subsequently converted into Foreign Currencies with the help of Rohit Vij and his associates through shell Money Changer entities viz. M/s Ranjan Money Corp. Pvt. Ltd. and M/s KDS Forex Pvt. Ltd controlled by them based in Delhi,” the statement said.
The statement further said: “Rohit Vij and his associates converted the tainted amount into foreign currencies, mostly in US Dollar & UAE Dirham, through multiple Authorised Money Changers (AMCs)/ Full Fledged Money Changers (FFMCs), and provided the same to the Chinese perpetrators of fraud through various middlemen through hawala channels.”
Earlier in January, the ED had arrested four Indian nationals for their alleged role in Rs. 1,651-crore Chinese app loan scam.
