Ticket scam accused skips bail
PHUKET: The Phuket Provincial Court has issued an arrest warrant for 24-year-old Briton Jonathan Duncan after he failed to appear in court on February 6 to face fraud charges.
Duncan was arrested on August 30 last year, following complaints by people who had bought cheap air tickets from him.
It is alleged that Duncan bought the air tickets by fraudulently using other people’s credit cards. When the card owners discovered the fraudulent charges, they ordered payments stopped, and the airlines therefore invalidated the tickets.
In one case a Phuket-based traveler was stranded in Canada when the return portion of his ticket was invalidated.
Duncan was released five days after his arrest on bail of 50,000 baht and the court set February 6 as the initial hearing date.
The court was told that a representative of Duncan’s bail provider had spoken to Duncan by phone on February 3 to remind him to keep his court date the following Monday.
However, on February 6, Duncan failed to answer his phone and did not appear in court.
Judge Yupawan Phurisinsit ordered the 50,000-baht bond forfeited and issued a warrant for Duncan’s arrest.
Another complaint, by Nok Air, filed in Bangkok with the Crime Suppression Division, alleges that Duncan defrauded the airline out of “about 1 or 2 million baht”.
