Chinese man arrested for 250 million baht fraud after 7 years on the run
Police arrested a Chinese man with a Vanuatu passport at a luxury accommodation in Bangkok for 250 million baht embezzlement in his home country after he had been on the run for seven years.
The arrest of the foreign suspect followed a tip-off from a resident shared with the Immigration Bureau in October. The resident reported that the foreign man, believed to be a Chinese national, lived in a luxury home and displayed suspicious behaviour.
The foreign man reportedly never left his home, but multiple Chinese people visited him at the accommodation.
The information led an undercover police officer, posing as a security guard at the village, to closely monitor the foreigner. A week after the undercover operation, the foreign man left his home for the first time in a white Volvo car.
Police stopped the vehicle upon its return and requested the foreign man to present his documents. The man was identified as a 40 year old Vanuatu national named Wu. He was found to have overstayed his visa in Thailand by a year.
Police initially charged him with overstaying his visa and took him to the Immigration Bureau for questioning. Wu reportedly displayed suspicious behaviour by repeatedly insisting that he was a Vanuatu citizen, not Chinese.
This led officers to contact international law enforcement agencies to confirm Wu’s identity. Police then discovered that he was wanted by prosecutors in Chaozhou City, China, for embezzling company funds. Interpol issued a Red Notice to track Wu down as a transnational criminal in 2015.
Wu previously served as a sales manager for a luxury real estate project in China. He allegedly deceived 48 clients by offering them a special deal and directed them to transfer payments into his personal bank account. He then escaped from China with more than 50 million yuan, or over 250 million baht.
Wu later obtained Vanuatu citizenship, using his new passport to avoid arrest for more than seven years.
Immigration officers are investigating his assets, including the luxury house and car, as well as involved suspects who may have assisted him.
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