Japanese Personal Info Left at Thai-Cambodian Border Scam Base

Chong Chom, Thailand, March 16 (Jiji Press)--The Thai military has shown international media an abandoned scam compound on the northeastern border with Cambodia, where documents containing many Japanese individuals' personal information remain scattered.

The tour to the Chong Chom border area in the Kap Choeng district of Surin Province on Thursday allowed participating journalists to catch a glimpse of complicated transborder online fraud, which has grown into "an industry."

On the 800,000-square-meter compound hosting some 160 buildings, an estimated 20,000 people had been engaged in scam operations.

In December last year, the fraud ring members fled the compound shortly before the Thai military shelled there as a Cambodian drone launch site amid escalating cross-border clashes between the Southeast Asian countries. Clothes and half-eaten meals were found left behind. Prior to the artillery fire, many people were seen leaving in buses, a Thai military source said.

The site visit showed rooms modified to resemble police stations and banks in Australia, Brazil, China and other countries, with fake police uniforms hung on racks. These rooms suggest that scammers used both video and voice calls to trick victims.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]