CYBER CRIME police arrested a young Thai man for opening an online account for a romance scammer to receive money from his victim while forced to work for a call centre gang in Cambodia, TV Channel 7 said today (May 15).
The swindle started in September 2022 when the scammer created a fake Instagram account under the name “Roland Nune” and then befriended the victim and started chatting with her. After they got close the online romance was moved to WhatsApp.
Later the scammer told the victim that he is sending her a gift of £50,000 in cash as well as other items including watches, handbags and gold but asked her to transfer money to cover the shipping cost and other fees otherwise he would face a heavy charge.
Even though the victim sent the money and did not receive the gift, the scammer gave various excuses for the delay and asked for further cash transfer. In the end after getting 1,090,000 baht he cut her off.
As the victim has filed a complaint with the police, they were able to track down Mr. Chaiporn (surname withheld), 23, under whose name the account was opened and arrested him on jointly defrauding the public and using fake data online charges.
The suspect confessed to the charges and related that he had applied for a job at a casino in Cambodia but the recruiter who took him to the neighbouring country instead turned him over to a Chinese call centre gang operating near the Vietnamese border.
There were around 30 Thais working there and he was forced to open an online bank account for them to use.
After working there for two months he and around 16 to 17 Thai friends managed to escape.
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The suspect being arrested by cyber crime police. Photo: Thai Rath
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