Thai woman accused of faking her death to escape loan sharks

A debt-ridden Thai woman has faked her death to get out of paying her debtors, says a local loan shark. A 37 year old woman from the central province of Lopburi, called Lookpad, ran up millions of debt and then hoped to escape paying her arrears by pretending to be dead. The woman’s family allegedly backed her plan, says the loan shark.

A loan shark brought the story to the attention of a Thai TV channel.

Nakapaphat Kitjakornwiboon told Amarin TV that she met Lookpad last year in Lopburi when she was selling noodles from her stall. The 41 year old was told by friends that Lookpad was heavily in debt and to avoid her but the loan shark took pity on her.

In February this year, Lookpad became aware that Nakapaphat held a kitty purse and asked if she could join. Basically, a kitty purse is like an unofficial bank. You pay every month and the kitty holder saves the money until you want to withdraw it.

Nakapaphat agreed to allow Lookpad to join and every month she chipped in some money until October. The loan shark then noticed Lookpad’s mother posted on Facebook that her daughter had died.

Her mother said…

“I love you, my daughter… Hope you will be an angel in heaven.”

Nakapaphat was shocked and planned to pay off her debt until some other loan sharks informed her that she faked her death, adding Lookpad’s family did not host any funeral ceremony.

Lookpad’s family told Amarin TV yesterday that they had not seen her for a long time. They added she collected the money from her noodle stall sale, borrowed three million baht from them, and then disappeared in October.

The family made known that Lookpad was stressed and told her family that she wanted to die before disappearing.

A friend of Lookpad called the family on October 29 to tell them that Lookpad committed suicide by hanging herself.

This made the family angry because they were left with a big debt to pay off.

Lookpad’s mother insisted that she did not know whether her daughter had died or not.

Nakapaphat said that she revealed Lookpad’s story to the media because she wanted to warn other people about this trick.

According to Thai law, a kitty purse can be set up, but the members are limited to 30 people. The amount of money gathered from members must be less than 300,000 baht. Also, the kitty purse host must not launch any advertisement to convince people to join the group. Anyone who breaks the law could face imprisonment of up to six months and a fine of up to 100,000 baht.

The whereabouts of Lookpad are still unknown.