Authorities say they believe 42 Chinese nationals who were arrested at a resort in Chanthaburi province on Tuesday night were preparing to cross into Cambodia to join a call centre scam operation.
A team of officers from the Chanthaburi Immigration Office, provincial, local and tourist police and the Chanthaburi Marine task force raided the resort in tambon Thap Sai of Pong Nam Ron district at 8pm on Tuesday after being alerted to a large group of Chinese checking in under suspicious circumstances.
The team searched 11 rooms and found 42 Chinese nationals who had recently arrived from northern Thailand and checked in on Tuesday afternoon. The group was preparing to cross the border into Cambodia.
The raid uncovered a large amount of electronic equipment, suggesting the group might be part of a transnational cybercrime network.
Seized were 215 mobile phones, 11 laptops, cash totalling 807,000 baht, 10 Myanmar SIM cards, flash drives and notebooks containing records.
Only seven of those detained were found to have passports. Only three of them contained valid visas and one had an expired visa. The remaining 35 people lacked passports.
Police have charged 38 people with illegal entry. The four others were charged with related offences. All were handed over to investigators at the Pong Nam Ron police station for further legal proceedings.
Immigration police said further investigations were under way to identify the masterminds behind the operation. The aim is to determine whether the group was linked to a transnational scam network and/or a human trafficking syndicate using Thailand as a transit point.
Authorities in Myanmar have stepped up crackdowns on scam gangs in recent weeks, while some arrests have also been made in northern Thailand. It has been speculated that other groups might be packing up and heading for Cambodia as a result.