“Mastermind” arrested for posing as doctor, “selling” vaccines

A man, and what some media reports are calling a “mastermind”, has been arrested for allegedly selling (or not selling) vaccines through a Line App. The man was apprehended yesterday in the central Thai province of Saraburi.

Police arrested 26 year old Weerasak Suksamdang near the TPI Polene building. They charged Weerasak with fraud and computer crimes.

The suspect denied the charges brought against him. Nonetheless, he was taken to the Udon Thani Police station where the complaints about his alleged scam were filed on June 30. According to the complainants, Weersak scammed them through a Line group known as “Vaccine Sinopharm” which sold vaccine doses for 1,800 baht.

Police say the scammer(s) passed themselves off as doctors who had obtained Sinpham vaccines that were “leftovers” from the Federation of Thai Industries. The scam was people would transfer the “doctors” money for a vaccine and the “doctors’ would instead remove them from the line group. Police say the lucrative, if not ingenious scam brought in over 300,000 baht for the scammer(s).

In other vaccine scam news, last March a (real) Thai doctor was accused of administering fake shots of flu vaccines so he could sell the real vaccine at a profit. The vaccines were actually just water. Subsequently, the doctor was suspended from duty and the Medical Council was considering revoking his doctor’s license. The doctor and perhaps soon to be ex-doctor took in 170,000 baht from the vaccine scam.

SOURCE: Chiang Rai Times