PHUKET: A Phuket woman has filed a complaint with police after being scammed of her life savings by what she claimed was a gang posing as police officers and bank officials.
The 49-year-old resident of Karon, using the alias Miss Phi, holds up her complaint filed with the Karon Police. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub
The 49-year-old resident of Karon, using the alias Miss Phi, filed a formal complaint with police in Phuket, reporting that the criminals claimed to be officers from Chon Buri Police and officials from Bangkok Bank and conned her out of her B500,000 savings.
Miss Phi said that she received a call around 6:30pm last Saturday (Jan 15) from someone claiming to be an employee of Bangkok Bank’s Chon Buri branch. The caller stated that Miss Phi had an outstanding credit card debt of B26,000 that needed to be settled immediately or else she would be liable to face prosecution.
When Miss Phi disputed the accusation, claiming she had never even owned a credit card, never taken out a loan nor borrowed any money from the bank, she was transferred to what the bank employee claimed was an officer from the Chon Buri Police who could provide further information on the matter.
According to Miss Phi, the bogus police officer stated that her Bangkok Bank account was being used for money laundering and had been used to deposit illegal funds generated from a drug-related operation, the leader of which had since been apprehended.
The officer then shared with Miss Phi actual photos of a random drug bust, claiming they were from the incident in which she had become embroiled.
Miss Phi then said that the officer instructed her to transfer the illicitly received amount of B504,432.04 which would be checked, he said, then returned to her account within two hours. Miss Phi then made eight different transactions to a Kasikornbank account under the name of Mr Aekpanya Kongmun.
Once Miss Phi had completed the transfers she was told by another person posing as a Chon Buri Police officer over the phone that she would receive a call back within five minutes. Less than three minutes after that call had ended, Miss Phi called the number she had been given, but there was no answer.
Convinced she had been duped by the gang, Miss Phi went to the Karon Police around 4:30pm yesterday (Jan 17), taking with her all her bank account details and relevant transaction receipts.
She stated that the amount had been in her account for around seven years and was being kept to buy her father a house. Miss Phi added that she wanted to pursue legal proceedings against the criminals even though the details of which were unknown by her or the police.
Source: The Phuket News
