Scam calls can target anyone, including the Prime Minister of Thailand.

Thai Prime Minister Shinawatra said this week she had received a scam call from someone pretending to be another world leader, but she did not reveal the person's identity.

"I could clearly hear in the voice that it was the voice of the leader of the country," she said Wednesday, adding that the caller may have used artificial intelligence to fake the voice of another leader.

It started with a voice message from someone asking how Paetongtarn was doing and saying they were looking forward to working together. She texted back saying she was fine and the person said they would be in touch.

The man later tried to call, "luckily it was 11pm and I fell asleep and didn't answer the phone," said 38-year-old Paetongtarn. She became the country's youngest prime minister in August and is the daughter of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Shinawatra.

She saw the missed call in the morning and texted back to arrange a call. She then received another voice message asking for donations, saying Thailand was the only member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) that had not donated.

When she received another text message instructing her to transfer money to a foreign bank account, "I knew it wasn't true," Paetongtarn said.

She did not say when she received the messages.

Southeast Asia has become a hub for telecoms and other online fraud, particularly in border towns connecting Thailand, Laos and Myanmar, the latter of which is mired in civil war. According to the United Nations, hundreds of thousands of people in the region have been trafficked into cybercrime operations.

Most of those trafficked come from Southeast Asia, South Asia, China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with some coming from as far away as Africa and Latin America.

They are then forced to engage in what is called "Pig-killing scams," which use psychological manipulation and other techniques to lure others into online investments or fake romantic relationships in order to defraud them of their money, sometimes their life savings. Scam centers target people around the world, including the United States.

Americans are expected to lose $3.5 billion to Southeast Asia's fraud industry in 2023, according to the U.S. Institute of Peace, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Earlier this month, a Chinese actor was found and returned to Thailand after going missing near the Thai-Myanmar border in a suspected human trafficking case. Actor Wang Xing, 22, thought he was going to Thailand for a casting call but ended up being trained to defraud other Chinese, according to Thai police.

The case was widely shared on Chinese social media and authorities have been calling for a tough crackdown on fraud.

Speaking at the ASEAN Digital Ministers' Meeting in Bangkok on Thursday, Paetongtarn said online fraud poses a serious threat to the public and regional cooperation is needed to combat it.

She said authorities must address the issue so as not to affect the tourism industry on which Thailand relies heavily. China is one of the country's largest sources of tourists.

China said on Friday that Chinese and Thai police jointly arrested 12 domestic and foreign criminal suspects suspected of fraud that led to the disappearance of Chinese citizens.