Thai chicken vendor fakes being a lawyer and wins in court

A Thai man who sells chicken for a living in Kamphaeng Phet province, central Thailand, has been arrested for pretending to be a lawyer for several years. He allegedly faked his license to practise law, fought several court cases, and even won a few.

The chicken vendor, Pornthep Kachenpak, got away with it for years by “outsourcing.” His method was to take a client’s money, use it to hire another (cheaper) lawyer, and then pass the work off as his own. He stood up in court and somehow won several cases. He also lost a few.

However, one client suspected fowl play when Pornthep took her money but didn’t make any progress with her defamation case. She searched for her case number in a database and found it was already linked to someone else’s drug case. So she asked for her money back.

The woman asked Pornthep to return her 42,000 baht, but he wouldn’t return it. So, she hired a real lawyer to investigate Pornthep’s authenticity.

At first, the real lawyer didn’t think Pornthep was a fake because his Facebook profile was full of photos that matched his job description. He uploaded numerous photos of himself suited up and “at work” in court.

However, the real lawyer did some digging and found that the license number Pornthep was using belonged to a woman who was a registered lawyer.

Pornthep has been since been arrested under suspicion of forging a license to practise law and forging documents from Kamphaeng Phet Provincial Court.

Prior to his arrest, police ran a background check and found that Pornthep had previously been arrested in Kamphaeng Phet province for “fighting in public.” The police’s notes said that Pornthep’s occupation was: a chicken vendor.

Channel 3 reports that at least five victims have lost money to Pornthep over the years, but possibly many more who were too chicken to report him.

The real lawyer said he probably got away with it for so long because most people would be too scared to press charges on a lawyer.

Thai media has dubbed Pornthep “the Thai Frank Abagnale.” Frank Abagnale is an author, fraudster, and convicted felon. He successfully passed as a doctor, lawyer and pilot.

Frank Abagnale co-wrote his autobiography “Catch Me If You Can,” which was turned into a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

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