Police busted a Chinese-led gang selling fake social media accounts to criminals in Thailand.

The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) raided 11 locations across Chiang Mai province and arrested 15 suspects, including the alleged Chinese ringleader and his Thai wife Jiraphan Prakobkit, 30.

Police seized 642 GSM Gateway SIM boxes, 72 computers, 1,455 mobile phones, 47 SIM card readers, six bank accounts, one rental document, 10 PCI cards and circuit boards, one external storage device, one antenna disk, and 590,000 SIM cards from Hong Kong, Thailand, and other various countries.

Police Lieutenant General Jiraphop Phuridet, commander of the Central Investigation Bureau, said on November 27 that the coordinated raids were part of operation 'CIB Crushes the Grey Dragon'.

He said: 'This operation significantly disrupts call center scams that cause billions of baht in damages annually. Seizing these SIM boxes effectively cuts off a major channel for online criminals. We are now intensifying our efforts to apprehend the Chinese financiers who have fled.'

The gang had reportedly been active for two years, with Jiraphan responsible for finding locations in which to install the SIM boxes. The devices were then used to generate one-time passwords, which were sold at 1 yuan (0.11 GBP) each to verify fake social media accounts.

They also allegedly modified the devices to bypass security algorithms on social media platforms to make the fraudulent accounts appear legitimate.

The suspects, which include the married couple, a Thai man, four Chinese nationals, and eight Myanmar nationals, will be charged with 'collaboratively manufacturing, using, importing, exporting, or trading telecommunication devices without authorisation', the CIB said.

The operation was an offshoot of a previous investigation in May, in which the Crime Suppression Bureau busted numerous call centre scam hubs across nine provinces in May.