A ceremony was held to celebrate the fourth anniversary of the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) of the Thai police. The operations conducted by TCSD since its formation include:
- ‘Operation Shutdown Stingray’, where they arrested crooks with Hong Kong connections that used an SMS blaster to impersonate a bank;
- ‘Operation Shell Game’, where they closed down a scam compound run by Indians and Thais that targeted victims in the USA; and
- ‘Operation SIM, Wire, Pole’, where they identified and destroyed cell sites and internet cables used to provide connectivity to scam compounds in neighboring countries.
Congratulations to all the police officers involved in these and many other operations that targeted telecom and cyber criminals, both inside Thailand and beyond. I especially like the fact that the Thai police have chosen to reassure the public by openly talking about the need to target resources at finding and punishing the criminal gangs behind the scams. A few more examples like these may help to raise the law enforcement hit rate reported by the Global Anti-Scam Alliance, which they currently claim is just one scammer caught per every 2,000 scammers working worldwide.
