Police in Pattaya in Thailand raided on Wednesday February 23 2011 the Hotel Viking. The goal was a bunch of Swedes and Norwegians who operated a call center cheating hundreds of Scandinavians for a couple of million Swedish kroner, according to the Swedish online media, politiskinkorrekt.info.
The Police found among other things 18 computer lists of phone numbers that show that the persons arrested run a call-center from the hotel under the name Global Telemarketing Ltd. It has been claimed to provide jobs, but also goods, and the customers has been paying an agency fee. The customers have not received anything and the money has been lost. The account in which money paid has ceased shortly after the money was transferred. The customers has being contacted by using Internet phone, the so-called VOIP (voice over Internet protocol). For customers, it seemed that the call center was located in Sweden or Norway.
Ulf Carl Johan Hellbacke
The Swedish media reports that one of the persons arrested is Ulf Carl Johan Hellbacke from Ludvika. He disappeared from Sweden two years ago to “unknown country”. He has previously being running a telemarketing company that police were notified from several entrepreneurs who claimed that they received false invoices from the company. Even earlier, in September 2007, he was convicted of fraud. He had received support from Sweden as unemployed in the spring of 2006 when in fact he was in Thailand. At trial he claimed that he applied for jobs via the Internet and that he would quickly be able to return to Sweden. The letters with requests for support, he sent to an acquaintance who posted them in Ludvika so that it would look as if he was still in Sweden. Ulf Carl Johan Hellbacke has previous convictions for theft and drug offenses. Four Norwegians and two Swedes were arrested. None of them have a work permit in Thailand and will now be prosecuted.
