[MatueHarton]

Thai police on Wednesday arrested 15 Chinese and seven Taiwanese involved in a call centre scam, deceiving victims in China and Taiwan into transferring money to them.

Department of Special Investigation (DSI) deputy chief Yanpol Yangyuen was accompanied by officials from the Bureau of Foreign Affairs and Transnational Crime, the Immigration Bureau, the Central Institute of Forensic Science and CAT Telecom when he announced the arrests at a press briefing on Wednesday.

Pol Col Yanpol said a team of officers on Wednesday morning raided a house on Chaeng Wattana road in Nonthaburi's Pakkret district, where 22 Chinese and Taiwanese nationals operated an illegal call centre.

Police seized computers, telephones with sound damping material, Chinese conversation textbooks and lists of victims' names and phone numbers.

The DSI deputy chief said the 22 suspects rented the house from a Thai man two weeks ago for 35,000 baht a month.

Police obtained information about the house from phone scammers who were previously arrested in Bangkok's Lat Phrao district.

The call centre gang confessed that they called their victims and claimed to be police or bank officials, according to police. The scammers would deceive them into believing they had broken the law and must transfer money into their accounts for inspection.

The gang worked in 24-hour shifts and received seven per cent of the money collected from each victim, he said.

The phone numbers were changed to make their victims believe that the calls were from Taiwan, he added.