Police arrested two women and three Thai men for orchestrating a romance scam spanning six years, during which they swindled a millionaire out of more than 63 million baht.
The Thai millionaire realised he was being scammed after nearly going bankrupt. He revealed the whole story to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) leading to the arrest of the main romance scammer, 35 year old Nontikarn, on February 27 in the central province of Ayutthaya.
According to the victim, he met Nontikarn on a dating website in 2016. Nontikarn approached him with an online profile of a beautiful woman and introduced herself as Ice. The victim continued to talk to Nontikarn for years, even though they had never met.
The victim then planned to marry Nontikarn but their wedding was put on hold because the scammer claimed she was suffering from cancer. Nontikarn asked for money from the victim by claiming that she had to pay for her treatment, pay off her family’s debts, invest in real estate, etc.
The victim was convinced of his girlfriend’s existence, largely due to Nontikarn’s cunning strategy involving other scammers posing as her family members, who visited the victim on multiple occasions.
The CIB officers reported that the victim transferred money to Nontikarn 690 times during six years of their contact, and the loss was more than 63 million baht.
Scammers arrested
Nontikarn admitted to running the romance scam and sharing the money she earned with her family members and other scammers in the gang. They spent the money on luxury houses and cars, designer branded products, land, cruise holidays and other items.
Nontikarn’s confession led to the arrest of the other four scammers on March 18 including a 30 year old woman named Krittika, a 34 year old man named Kongphop, a 31 year old man named Jeerasak, and a 30 year old man named Wachira.
The five scammers face three charges including:
- Section 342 of the Criminal Law: committing fraud by impersonating another person. The penalty is imprisonment of up to five years, a fine of up to 10,000 baht, or both.
- Section 14 of the Computer Act: importing false information into the computer system to cause damage to a person or the public. The penalty is imprisonment of up to five years, a fine of up to 100,000 baht, or both.
- Section 9 of the Act on Prevention and Suppression of Money Laundering: entering into a conspiracy to commit money laundering. The penalty is imprisonment from one to ten years, a fine from 20,000 to 200,000 baht, or both.
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