Romance scam goes from hearts to handcuffs as cops nab couple
A romance scam has ended in handcuffs for a Chinese woman and her Thai accomplice, who spun a web of deceit to con romantics out of a staggering 91 million baht.
The pair turned a Bang Phli housing estate into the epicentre of their elaborate romance-investment scam, fooling victims with promises as hollow as their fraudulent hearts.
Zhou Zhou and her 31 year old partner, Alisa Lamkrathok of Nakhon Ratchasima, were arrested in a dramatic swoop at the Indy 4 estate in tambon Bang Kaew on Wednesday, February 19.
The operation, led by Police Major General Theeradet Thumsuthee, Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Bureau, uncovered a trove of incriminating evidence that laid bare the pair’s criminal enterprise.
Inside their lair, officers seized a staggering 102 bank passbooks, 70 debit cards, a mountain of approximately 1,000 SIM cards, four mobile phones, a laptop, and a modest Toyota Yaris. It was a veritable treasure trove for any scam artist, detailing the mechanics of their con.
According to Police Major General Theeradet, the duo masterminded romance scams, luring their smitten victims into bogus investment schemes. One hapless romantic was coaxed into investing in a TikTok store in Singapore, receiving fleeting returns before the scam surfaced.
The pair’s conniving didn’t stop there, they swiftly transformed their ill-gotten gains into bitcoin, using a renowned digital currency exchange within Thailand to launder the loot.
The 29 year old Zhou, unable to speak Thai herself, recruited her partner Alisa to leave a teaching career behind to aid in their criminal recruitment drive. She admitted to enlisting individuals to open mule accounts and digital wallets, shifting the dirty money through clever ploys.
The sharp-eyed police connected the dots, linking the 102 confiscated bank passbooks to a whopping 132 online fraud complaints, with victims collectively bled dry of over 91.2 million baht, reported Bangkok Post
In a further twist, police have detained three more Thai accomplices. The trio was caught red-handed on the brink of opening yet another bank account for Zhou’s operation at a hotel near Ramkhamhaeng 2 University.
Police Major General Theeradet emphasised the crackdown’s significance, sending a firm message to other fraudsters lurking in the shadows: the strong arm of the law won’t rest until every trickster is brought to justice.
And so, the duplicitous duo’s crime-fuelled romance ends not in bliss but behind bars, their web of lies unravelled and their victims left to heal from the sting of betrayal.
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