Foreign men allegedly swindles 1.2 million baht from Thai victims

Two Thai victims sought help from Channel 7 after two foreign men swindled them out of US$34,700 (about 1.2 million baht) while the police delayed taking action on the case.

A Thai woman named Karnratha, along with her boyfriend, implored Channel 7 to broadcast their story to put pressure on officers at Lumphini Police Station to take action on their case. Despite providing all the evidence they could gather, there had been no progress in the investigation.

Karnrada recalled how her friend had persuaded her to buy some gold accessories from the foreigners, promising that they were selling gold at an exceptionally low price, which Karnrada could later resell for a substantial profit. The only condition, her friend had explained, was to make the purchase using US dollars.

Karnrada said she did the maths and found that she would make a profit of over 100,000 baht, so she decided to make an appointment with two foreigners at their gold manufacturer on January 19.

Karnrada prepared 34,700 dollar notes to pay for the gold accessories and met the foreigners with her boyfriend and her friend. However, the foreigners took them to a love motel in Soi Sukhumvit 11 in Bangkok instead of the factory.

Karnrada decided to wait in the car and asked her friend and boyfriend to deal with the foreigners, who identified themselves as Phillip and Jason, in the hotel room. Jason asked Kanratha’s boyfriend to show him the cash and asked him to count it to see if it was the agreed amount or not.

Real money switched

After counting, Jason placed the money on the table near his bag. Jason then asked Karnrada to join the meeting and witness the weighing of the gold. Jason put gold accessories weighing about 1 kilogramme into a plastic bag to show to Karnrada.

Suddenly, Jason put the gold bag on the table, grabbed the money and tried to put it in his bag. Karnrada’s friend grabbed the cash back. The friend and Jason struggled for a while until the friend got the cash and handed it to Karnrada’s boyfriend. The boyfriend kept the cash in his bag, and he immediately left the hotel.

The foreign men made another appointment with Karnrada, saying too many people came to the meeting, and he was afraid he would be cheated. That is why he said he grabbed the cash very quickly for safety. Kanrada agreed to the appointment but the foreigners did not show up.

Karnrada said she gave up on the gold and went to the money exchange shop to exchange the cash for the Thai baht. The information she got from the shop shocked her. The dollar banknotes were fake, with only one bill at the top of the pile being genuine.

It is suspected that the real dollar banknotes were switched during the chaos as Jason and Karnrada’s boyfriend struggled to get to the cash. The victims did not clarify whether their Thai friend was involved in the swindling process or not.

Police delay

Karnrada reported the incident to the Lumphini Police Station and handed over all of the evidence to the police. She followed up on the case but there was no development. Officers claimed that it was difficult to obtain the CCTV footage from the love hotel. She decided to look for the CCTV footage herself and gave it to the police but the case still went nowhere.

Channel 7 reported that they visited Sukhumvit Soi 11 and asked both Thai and foreign people in the area about the foreign suspects. People in the area confirmed that they saw the two in the area several times.

The media questioned Lumphini Police Station officers why they could not track down the suspects even though the scene of the crime was only 15 minutes away from the police station. They are still waiting for a reply.