Police on Thursday, November 24th, arrested two
Nigerians and three Thai women for allegedly swindling women seeking foreign
husbands out of 50 million baht through an internet romance scam.
According to Provincial
Police Region 4 chief Pol Maj Gen Jatupon Parnraksa, the two Nigerian men
identified as Okwutor Peter, 29, and Jeremiah Ndidi, 27 and their three Thai
accomplices were arrested at a Bangkok condominium where police seized 20 bank books
and ATMs with transactions totalling more than 50 million baht.
The Thai suspects were
identified as Jaerati Saisin and Nattacha Thongbai, both 30, from Rayong and
Yasothon, who were married to the Nigerians. The third woman was a 34-year-old
Bangkok native, Ketsara Marksiri.
Pol Maj Gen Jatupon said
police acted on a complaint filed in Udon Thani province last month by the
gang’s latest victim who was a 45-year-old rubber plantation owner who had been
swindled out of 500,000 baht.
The Nigerians claimed to be
good-looking, white and well-to-do. They developed close ties with women
seeking rich foreign husbands via Facebook or online chat programmes, and proposed
marriage. They would then claim that they were detained by airport and customs
authorities for bringing in cash that was more than the legal limit, and asked
the victims to transfer money to them to pay for tax on the cash.
Police believe Peter and Ndidi are part of a larger Nigerian
gang operating online romance scams, led by a Nigerian mafia man identified
only as Yusuf.
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