1,500 arrested for online fraud, gambling in 2022

More than 1,500 people were arrested for online fraud and gambling last year, said the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society (DES).

The Cybercrime Control Committee, led by DES Minister Chaiwut Thanakhamanusorn, on Wednesday revealed its annual statistics on cybercrime at their first meeting of the year.

Eight call centre scams saw 166 suspects nabbed among the 1,570 arrest cases. The other arrests involved illegal online gambling websites in 461 cases, and online trading fraud in 270 cases.

The statistics also show that 118,530 sim cards were seized for phishing calls or messages. It also revealed that 58,463 bank accounts were opened illegally for the sole purpose of cybercrime, prompting the closure of eight illegal account trading groups on social networking sites.

The committee also had a follow-up on closing 6,024 illegal website URLs, most of which were…