2 Vietnamese con men swindles 65,000 baht from phone shop in Thailand

Two Vietnamese men allegedly swindled 65,000 baht from a phone shop in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima by selling two counterfeit iPhones.

The owner of the phone shop, 46 year old Ratchaphat Thoenmongkhon, filed a complaint at Mueng Nakhon Ratchasima Police Station on May 19 after learning that the two mobile phones she bought from the Vietnamese men were fake.

In an interview with ThaiRath, Ratchaphat recalled that two foreigners, believed to be Vietnamese, visited her shop around 10am on May 8. They sold her two mobile phones totalling 65,000 baht.

Ratchaphat inspected the phones and thought they were the authentic iPhone 14 Pro Max and handed over the money to the foreigners.

Unexpectedly, the two men returned to the shop, expressing their desire to repurchase the phones. Ratchaphat retrieved the phones from her storage and handed them back to the foreigners.

While checking the phone, one of the foreigners picked up the phone and talked to someone in Chinese. After concluding the call, he informed Ratchaphat that he no longer wanted the phone but asked for an additional 5,000 baht. She refused, so the pair left the shop.

Unfortunately, she later found that the two phones were counterfeit. She suspected that the two foreigners had switched the authentic iPhones with the fake ones while they were inspecting the phones in her shop.

She said the police declined to investigate the matter due to the lack of concrete evidence.

Ratchaphat said she investigated on her own. During her inquiries, she encountered other victims who had fallen prey to a similar scam. She discovered that there were four additional victims in Nakhon Ratchasima and 18 victims from across the country.

Ratchaphat and the other victims shared information. She managed to obtain footage from security cameras in the nearby area, along with photographs of the criminals and their Vietnamese passports. She urged the officers to take the case seriously and arrest the foreign criminal gang as soon as possible.