Crime

Task Force Chases Suspected Kingpin of Asian Meth Syndicate

The suspected syndicate leader is Tse Chi Lop, 55, an ex-convict who formerly lived in Toronto Canada. He has moved between Macau, Hong Kong and Taiwan in recent years. According to counter-narcotics officers.

Published

5 years ago

October 15, 2019

Bchcomber

The largest ever task force assembled to fight organized crime in Asia has identified a long-time drug trafficker. A China-born Canadian national, as the suspected kingpin of a crime syndicate.

Police say they syndicate dominates the $70 billion-a-year Asia-Pacific drug trade.

Authorities have not publicly identified Tse as the boss of the drug trafficking group.

Brother Number Three

The syndicate he is suspected of running is known to its members as “The Company.” Law enforcers also refer to it as “Sam Gor,” or Brother Number Three in Cantonese, after one of Tse’s nicknames.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP), which has taken the lead in the sprawling investigation, has compiled a list of top syndicate members that identifies Tse as “the senior leader of the Sam Gor syndicate.” The group, the list says, has “been connected with or directly involved in at least 13 cases” of drug trafficking since January 2015. The list, reviewed by Reuters, does not provide specific details of the cases.

A flow-chart of the syndicate in a Taiwanese law enforcement document identifies Tse as the “Multinational CEO” of the Sam Gor syndicate. A U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) alert circulated among regional government agencies this year says Tse is “believed to be” the leader of the syndicate.

Brother Number Three is Target Number One

According to interviews with regional law enforcers from eight countries, as well as a review of law enforcement documents, the syndicate produces vast quantities of high-grade methamphetamine in Myanmar. The syndicate traffic’s the drug to countries stretching from Japan to New Zealand. The syndicate is “conservatively” raking in $8 billion a year and could be earning as much as $17.7 billion annually. Estimated by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

“Tse Chi Lop is in the league of El Chapo or maybe Pablo Escobar,” said Jeremy Douglas, Southeast Asia and Pacific representative for UNODC. Referring to Latin America’s most legendary narco-traffickers. “The word kingpin often gets thrown around, but there is no doubt it applies here.”

The syndicate is the major factor in the fourfold increase in region-wide meth trafficking in the past five years. The supply of the highly addictive drug has also surged. Causing the street price to plummet in many countries. In a report in July, the UN agency said the meth trade had reached “unprecedented and dangerous levels.” This is a “direct challenge to the public security and health of the region.”

Chinese Triad Alliance

The AFP has identified 19 top syndicate leaders, four of whom are Canadian nationals, the target list shows. Other suspected leaders hail from Hong Kong, Macau, mainland China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Myanmar and Vietnam. Some have links to drug trafficking that go back decades, according to the target list and investigators from four countries, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Tse has not been arrested. Counter-narcotics agents said they suspect he has long been aware he is under surveillance. So far, at least one senior member of the syndicate has been arrested, according to investigators and police documents.

Tse has previously been involved in drug trafficking. In the late 1990s, he was arrested and extradited from Hong Kong to the United States on charges of conspiracy to import heroin into America. He was tried in New York and in 2000 sentenced to nine years in prison, which he mostly served in the federal correctional institution in Elkton, Ohio.

Operation Kungur

The investigation, which involves about a dozen countries, has been dubbed Operation Kungur. Counter-narcotics agencies from China, Myanmar, the United States and Thailand are also leading participants, along with Australia. Taiwan, while not a formal member, is also assisting.

At the core of the syndicate are at least five triad groups that originated in Hong Kong, Macau, China and Taiwan but which have global reach, AFP officers said. These are the 14K, Wo Shing Wo, Sun Yee On, the Big Circle Gang and the Bamboo Union.

To get its drugs to market, the Sam Gor syndicate works closely with Japan’s Yakuza, Thai organized crime, and Australian motorcycle gangs, among other crime groups, according to regional anti-narcotics agents.

According to regional police sources, the task force has gathered phone intercepts of Tse talking about his drug business. The have also gathered phone call logs linking him to other suspected syndicate members. Also surveillance footage of Tse with members of the crime group.

Meth Trade Worth Billions

The UNODC estimates that the Asia-Pacific methamphetamine trade alone was worth as much as $61.4 billion in 2018, up from an estimated $15 billion just five years earlier. Heroin trafficking was worth up to $10.3 billion in 2018, it said.

The syndicate is suspected to be the major player in both the meth and heroin markets. Producing the drugs as well as the hallucinogen ketamine in super-labs in Myanmar’s northeast. Ethnic armed groups in the Shan state control swathes of territory. Police also say the syndicate traffics MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy. And cocaine sourced from Europe and Latin America respectively.

The Myanmar government and police did not respond to questions from Reuters.

Authorities say the drugs are distributed via repurposed fishing vessels that traverse vast distances. They are hidden in containers aboard other vessels; transported by vehicles; couriers with backpacks who walk along jungle tracks leading out of the syndicate’s production hub in the heart of Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle.

Source: Reuters

Crime

Police Officer Being Ordained at Temple Arrested for Running Scam Call Center

Published

4 months ago

July 20, 2024

Thomas3940

Police Officer Being Ordained at Temple Arrested

Police in Northern Thailand have arrested a fellow officer as he was being ordained at a temple in Ngao district of neighbouring Lampang province.

Pol Lt Col Bandit Khonkan chief inspector from the Hang Dong police station was disrobed and taken to the Chang Puak station in Chiang Mai. He was arrested on charges of running a call centre scam gang in Chiang Mai Province.

According to Thai Media Chiang Mai Provincial Police Region 5 obtained an arrest warrant for Pol Lt Col Bandit on Friday from the Chiang Mai Provincial Court for procuring illegal telecom equipment, setting up a station and using public airwaves to run a telecommunications business without permission.

Pol Lt Col Bandit reportedly told investigators that he was not the ringleader and was only a member of the gang with Chinese partners.

His arrest followed the apprehension of his 26-year-old daughter, Miss Wanuchapond, 26, and three others during raids at three housing projects in Chiang Mai on Friday, Pol Maj Gen Weerachon Boontawee, deputy chief of Provincial Police Region 5 told Thai media.

During the raids police police discovered around 12 GSM gateways, or SIM boxes, which are devices used for converting cellular networks into mobile phone numbers used domestically.

The chief inspectors daughter Miss Wanuchapond told the arresting officers that she was paid 8,000 baht a month at each of the three locations for renting thr rooms and monitoring devices.

She claimed she had no idea what the devices were and accepted the job because the pay was attractive.

Police investigators working with telecom regulators used a special tracking device to monitor the gang’s communications and learned that its base was in Myanmar opposite Mae Sai district of Chiang Rai.

The call center gang used the GSM gateways to make calls over the internet to scam people in Thailand out of million of baht.

The GSM gateways transmitting signals via SIM boxes to convert them into domestic phone numbers, duping victims into thinking they were being called from Thai government agencies.

Pol Maj Gen Weerachon said that each SIM box held 32 SIM cards, with a capacity of up to 300,000 calls a month. The seized devices had made fraudulent calls over 3.6 million times.

He said the their investigation is ongoing and they are working to track down the remaining conspirators, including Chinese and other Thai suspects.

Authorities are still deciding whether Pol Lt Col Bandit will be dismissed from the force, he said, adding that so far, no other officers are known to have been involved.

Police in Chiang Rai Launch Crackdown on Cyber Criminals in Golden Triangle

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin has authorized the establishment of an emergency cyber center operated by the Royal Thai Police to combat transnational crimes committed by call center gangs along the Thai border in Chiang Rai province.

On July 19, Prime Minister Settha Thavisin directed the Center to combat information technology crimes. The Royal Thai Police (Royal Thai Police) will crack down on call center gangs in Myanmar, Laos, and along the border.

His directive comes as call center gangs ratchet up their scams to defraud people of their money, causing concern among Thais and jeopardizing the country’s economic and social stability.

Related Police News:

Machete Wielding Man Shot an Killed by Police in Chiang Rai

https://www.chiangraitimes.com/chiangrai-news/machete-wielding-man-shot-an-killed-by-police-in-chiang-rai/

Crime

Thai Immigration Police Arrest Colombian Tourists Over Home Invasions

Published

4 months ago

July 20, 2024

Thomas3940

Thai Immigration Police Arrest Colombian Tourist

Immigration police officers have arrested four Colombian nationals in connection with a series of home burglaries at luxury housing complexes in the Bangkok metropolitan area and Chiang Buri Province.

Pol Maj Gen Panthana Nuchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Bureau, told a press briefing that three of the suspects were apprehended in Nonthaburi Province and the fourth in South Pattaya, Chon Buri Province.

According to the Bangkok Post, the Colombians were charged with stealing conspiracy and seized around 3 million baht (US$82,500.00).

According to Pol Maj Gen Panthana, the criminals rode motorcycles through housing estates, scoping out the properties and waiting for the owners to depart before committing their crimes.

He stated that all four of the accused denied any involvement in the home break-ins, but the arresting squad discovered evidence that implicated them.

Police called to home invasion

Meanwhile, police were dispatched to a luxury housing development in Tambon Nong Prue, Chonburi Province, after a Chinese man was attacked during a house invasion.

When they arrived, they discovered the house owner, Mr. Qian Peng Yi, visibly scared and with marks from being tied up with a cable. He informed police that three Chinese males broke into his home at 9 p.m., one of whom brandished a gun at him and directed him to his bedroom.

They bound his hands and feet, gagged him with fabric, taped his head, and forced him into the bed. The intruders then attempted to compel him into transferring 10 million baht in cryptocurrencies to them, endangering the life of his 33-year-old cousin who was in a second-floor bedroom.

While they scoured the house in search of riches, Mr. Peng Yi managed to flee and hide; he subsequently observed them leave with his cousin. Officials investigated the property and analyzed security camera footage from the incident and surrounding areas.

Around 9 p.m., a 30-year-old van driver came at the Bang Lamung police station after being contacted by an agency to carry Chinese customers from Pattaya to Suvarnabhumi Airport.

The driver informed authorities that he was supposed to pick them up at a motel about a kilometer from the Chinese businessman’s home. He then drove them to Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport, arriving at 1 a.m. and receiving 1,800 baht.

The driver took a snapshot of the group smoking at the airport gate and identified one of them as the victim’s cousin. Police suspected coordination between her and the three suspects in her cousin’s heist, who all departed Thailand on the same aircraft.

Other Bangkok News:

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Police in Bangkok Discover Six Vietnamese Tourists Dead in 5 Star Hotel

Crime

Son of Thailand’s Leading Legal Scholar on Corruption Arrested for Running Online Gambling Network

Published

4 months ago

July 17, 2024

Thomas3940

The son of a former senator and leading economist and expert on corruption and gambling in Thailand has been arrested for on charges of running an online gambling network and its payment system.

Police from Thailand’s Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD) have confiscated assets worth more than (US$ 11.1 million) 400 million baht.

Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, was arrested following crackdowns in three sites around the city, according to Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).

Mr Narote’s father, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, is an economist who has written articles and books about corruption and gambling. He was one of the appointed senators that were investigating the government’s intention to legalize casino gaming before their terms expired.

Police also detained 39-year-old Narayut Narakaew, the owner of the gambling website 69pgslot.com. The Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the couple for operating an internet gambling service and money laundering.

According to the Bangkok Post, police seized two desktop computers, one laptop computer, 14 mobile phones, 21 bank passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-end cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus, and a Subaru — totaling more than 400 million baht.

Police launched the inquiry after discovering the online gambling site, which accepted funds via an automatic deposit-withdrawal system through bank accounts and deposits in the AskMePay system. Players scanned the VPay QR code as well as the QR codes for Heng Online 888 or Heng Pay Company.

Police also discovered that payments received via QR code scans were transferred to the account of Heng Pay Co and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts using AskMePay, which did not use banks’ face recognition scanning. An inquiry indicated a monthly turnover of approximately 5 billion baht.

According to investigators, the website has been up and running for around four years, with the payment mechanism in use for roughly eight months.

According to Pol Maj Gen Athip, Mr Narote owns the gaming website’s payment systems and is the director of Heng Pay Co. After gathering evidence, authorities requested arrest warrants for 14 people.

Thailand does not allow almost any kind of gaming. Even though the law doesn’t say anything specific about online gaming, it is still considered gambling. The country has pretty strict rules about gambling. Thai punters can bet on the national lottery and horse races, but they can’t bet on any other types of games.

But it’s not a secret that there is a huge illegal gaming business in Thailand, even though it’s illegal.

The illegal casinos, online betting shops, underground lotteries, and pop-up bookies that take bets on everything from cockfights to Muay Thai make a shadow economy that is worth billions of dollars every year.