Chinese hackers using Thailand as a base nabbed
On the instructions of the Economic Crime Suppression Division, local police on Tuesday (December 24) raided and a hotel in Ratchada area after being tipped off that a group of young Chinese were spending all their time in a room, calling room service for meals and refusing to allow maid service in to clean.
Three Chinese nationals aged between 23 and 25 were arrested in the raid, which turned up 116 Chinese branded phones, 90 USB charger cables, 119 sim cards packages and one laptop.
According to investigators, the Chinese group was using as Thailand as a base to hack a popular social networking site. They had bought a large number of mobile sims and inserted them mobile phones from China with embedded applications for hacking We-chat, a popular chat program. to create accounts that cannot be verified to sell on the black market. Fake We-chat accounts are in high demand among fraudsters in China and the group was creating thousands of these fake accounts per day.
Police said Chinese hackers using Thailand as a base to commit such crimes was growing and if the fake user account with Thai sim card was used for terrorism and other offences in foreign countries, the image of the country would be severely tarnished. For now, the Chinese group has been charged under the “alien workers working without permission” law and the authorities would coordinate with the Chinese authorities.