Three women accused in alleged Bt200m investment scam

By Jessada Chantharak 
The Nation

 

 

Three Thai women have been arrested for allegedly luring 2,000 victims into a Facebook scam involving foreign exchange and digital currency exchange investments, resulting in Bt200 million in damages.

 

Ariya Tuamthong, Sumarin Suwannathep and Sunee Praditdee as executives of Siam Real Group Limited Partnership were arrested in Rayong on Sunday on arrest warrants on charges of fraud and violating the Royal Decree on Loans of Money Amounting to Public Cheating and Fraud. 

 

Deputy Tourist Police chief Maj-General Surachate Hakpan told a press conference on Monday that the women maintained their innocence.

 

Surachate said the case stemmed from a compliant filed directly to him on July 31 by 50 alleged victims. 

 

He said the company advertised that if a client invested between Bt500 and Bt250,000, they would gain 1.5 per cent a day in interest, while an investment worth Bt250,001 to Bt1 million would gain 1.8 per cent daily interest, and those over Bt1 million will gain 2 per cent daily interest. 

 

This led to 2,000 people investing a total of Bt200 million, he said.

 

Police had applied for arrest warrants for five suspects, including the three women, he said. The other two persons were a Turkish man and his Thai wife Jureeporn Rungreung, who have fled the country. 

 

Surachate said the three apprehended suspects maintained they had nothing to do with the crime and claimed they just gave personal documents to Jureeporn who promised to find them jobs.

 

They claimed they were not aware their names were used by the company.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30351560

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-8-6

7 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

The other two persons were a Turkish man and his Thai wife Jureeporn Rungreung, who have fled the country. 

And absconded with the funds...retired happily ever after on 6 million US.

breaking news.... Honest taxi driver returns huge bag of money estimated at BT200 million left in his car,by Turkish man...

Edited August 6, 20187 yr by mok199
speliings

17 minutes ago, 300sd said:

And absconded with the funds...retired happily ever after on 6 million US.

Thai con artists and low life friends absconding with stolen funds? What's so unusual about that?

This is a bit different as it mostly occurs at the top end of town and political circles and the temples.

25 minutes ago, snoop1130 said:

He said the company advertised that if a client invested between Bt500 and Bt250,000, they would gain 1.5 per cent a day in interest, while an investment worth Bt250,001 to Bt1 million would gain 1.8 per cent daily interest, and those over Bt1 million will gain 2 per cent daily interest

Jeez' how gullible are these people sometimes .. If they ain't weighing out on some hocus pocus superstition in the mistaken belief that their lives will be enriched then they are buying into cranky schemes like this .. Surely the promise of 1.5% a day should've had the alarm bell ringing no .? But as the saying goes " a fool and their money are easily parted " .. 

Ah, very interesting.

Educated ladies ripping people off in Thailand.

This cant be so,  Some people on Tv have been trying to tell others the last few days.

it's only uneducated ladies from the village that are the bad ones.

 

Note to ones self, don't listen to some of the wallies on Tv. 

 

It's always amazing how gullible and stupid people are on Facebook. However, they are all victims of their own greed...so, som-nam-na

13 minutes ago, mok199 said:

breaking news.... Honest taxi driver returns huge bag of money estimated at BT200 million left in his car,by Turkish man...

That's excellent news, it more than cancels out that other (probably fake) news about the investment scam.

All's well that ends well.

 

"...if a client invested between Bt500 and Bt250,000, they would gain 1.5 per cent a day in interest, while an investment worth Bt250,001 to Bt1 million would gain 1.8 per cent daily interest..."

OK...One More Time....If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. Anyone whose greed and lack of work incentive leads him down the promised path to easy riches deserves what he winds up with at the end of that road. 

Edited August 6, 20187 yr by jaltsc

17 minutes ago, Justgrazing said:

Jeez' how gullible are these people sometimes .. If they ain't weighing out on some hocus pocus superstition in the mistaken belief that their lives will be enriched then they are buying into cranky schemes like this .. Surely the promise of 1.5% a day should've had the alarm bell ringing no .? But as the saying goes " a fool and their money are easily parted " .. 

I assume you mean all people and not Thais?

to be fair the largest scammers on investments in Thailand have been farangs ripping off farangs for decades.

think boiler room scam? How stupid are all those poor unfortunate farang OAP trusting people from Europe, OZ and US etc for being duped by thieving scum?

 

2 minutes ago, Happy enough said:

I assume you mean all people and not Thais?

to be fair the largest scammers on investments in Thailand have been farangs ripping off farangs for decades.

think boiler room scam? How stupid are all those poor unfortunate farang OAP trusting people from Europe, OZ and US etc for being duped by thieving scum?

 

It's all the same at the end of the day. Too many people want to believe that they have found the perfect get rich quick scheme, and greed overtakes common sense. The rule of thumb, which is clearly being widely ignored here, is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. You can search around in the legitimate market for an extra half, or one percentage point, so crazy interest levels attracts the stupid, who can't think through that such a scheme is unsustainable and therefore crooked. Evil people behind it, stupid people queueing up. I have no sympathy for the jail time the perpetrators will get and very little more for those dumb enough to have thrown their money away so foolishly.

8 minutes ago, darksidedog said:

It's all the same at the end of the day. Too many people want to believe that they have found the perfect get rich quick scheme, and greed overtakes common sense. The rule of thumb, which is clearly being widely ignored here, is that if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. You can search around in the legitimate market for an extra half, or one percentage point, so crazy interest levels attracts the stupid, who can't think through that such a scheme is unsustainable and therefore crooked. Evil people behind it, stupid people queueing up. I have no sympathy for the jail time the perpetrators will get and very little more for those dumb enough to have thrown their money away so foolishly.

The only thing I would add to that and agree DSD is when it comes to boiler rooms they didn’t hunt out a get rich quick scheme and are often pressure called multiple times by people that know every trick in the book to gain your confidence and trust. Many of those victims didn’t want an investment or get rich quick scheme but ended up liking and trusting their perps and invested because of that rather than any care to actually get rich out of it 

19 minutes ago, Happy enough said:

I assume you mean all people and not Thais?

to be fair the largest scammers on investments in Thailand have been farangs ripping off farangs for decades.

think boiler room scam? How stupid are all those poor unfortunate farang OAP trusting people from Europe, OZ and US etc for being duped by thieving scum?

 

Sure gullibility is not the exclusive preserve of Thai's but pie in the sky % rates like that would have I suggest most normal sighted people turning the page .. And yea farang will stitch up farang without a second thought but I've heard of few farang able to lasso Thai's like their fellow Thai's can .. This case quite amply underlining the point .. 

Just now, Justgrazing said:

Sure gullibility is not the exclusive preserve of Thai's but pie in the sky % rates like that would have I suggest most normal sighted people turning the page .. And yea farang will stitch up farang without a second thought but I've heard of few farang able to lasso Thai's like their fellow Thai's can .. This case quite amply underlining the point .. 

It’s good that you wouldn’t be fooled and neither would I. Would my own mother have not a clue about finance or investments and fall victim to a seemingly friendly c*** on a phone? Quite possible if she didn’t have me to warn her away.

sure Thais will be easier to scam Thais the same as farang on farang.

old sales technique is to find familiar ground. You mention to one sales guy you like rugby for example that will go on their notes and their next sales guy to call will also like rugby. Might even change his surname to the same as yours.

these people aren’t gullible IMO, they are just victims of c**** who could have made money legit if they so chose.

no victim blaming from me.

They generally prey on lonely pensioners who are clueless on such matters but they also get plenty of others. 

Maybe check this out on you tube if allowed on TVF

 

11 hours ago, Sir Dude said:

It's always amazing how gullible and stupid people are on Facebook. However, they are all victims of their own greed...so, som-nam-na

if it sounds too good to be true ? everyone should know the rest 

1.5 - 2 per cent per day … no alarm bells going on or only greed in their brain maybe

No wonder there's so much crime in Thailand; count the number of cops in this room who are not out on the mean streets.

There are several such bogus schemes mushrooming everywhere in the world and a lot of such news on Tv and print media.. still people fall prey to these schemes.. it’s not lack of common sense and foolishness.. it’s just the greed and pure lust for easy and quick money that these people wanted.. having millions and still wanting for more.. only working class and the lower middle class are the target for these schemes.. 

Mind you, on the other side of the coin are UK firms offering instant short-term loan money on Sky TV, as much as 1,300% APR.  A slightly longer loan term at 59.9% APR.  Note, BOE interest rate is 0.75%.

 

And is this not a scam, which presumably meets UK financial watchdog approval?

to be fair the largest scammers on investments in Thailand have been farangs ripping off farangs for decades.

 

You're joking, Thai women would win that prize hands down.

Unmask those scoundrels and shame them properly!!

1 hour ago, Wallander4 said:

1.5 - 2 per cent per day … no alarm bells going on or only greed in their brain maybe

Using a simple online calculator, I entered 100,000 at 1.5% daily interest for 12 months and got a final total of 212,703,85.

Someone  more financially literate than I can perhaps confirm this, but if I am correct this is way beyond too good to be true.

Whats the difference between and educated Thai and an uneducated Thai, that sums up Thai education perfectly, now lets all pop down to the temple and visit the fortune teller!

I have a great deal of sympathy for those who fell for this scam.  The people who run them know exactly what they are doing and how to target the victims. Thats what they do for a living!  There are people in Australia who fell for the Nigerian scams who were intelligent and well educated and stories are legion about well educated people falling for online scams worldwide.

As a matter of interest how many here on tv could do a simple compound interest calculation? I had to look it up.

50 minutes ago, fantom said:

Using a simple online calculator, I entered 100,000 at 1.5% daily interest for 12 months and got a final total of 212,703,85.

Someone  more financially literate than I can perhaps confirm this, but if I am correct this is way beyond too good to be true.

100,000 * 1.5% = 1,500 * 365= 547,500 - and that's not compounding the daily interest.

1 hour ago, Chassa said:

to be fair the largest scammers on investments in Thailand have been farangs ripping off farangs for decades.

 

You're joking, Thai women would win that prize hands down.

thai women would win that hands down?

really? don't hang out in girly bars and they won't win hands down.

if you do hang out with such girls in the nana area, chances are you're helping the boiler room guys launder their money

47 minutes ago, stephenterry said:

100,000 * 1.5% = 1,500 * 365= 547,500 - and that's not compounding the daily interest.

The calculator I used compounded the daily interest and 100,000 came to 21,270,385 after 12 months which seems an extraordinary amount.

Interesting either way.

compoundaily.com

Edited August 7, 20187 yr by fantom

2 hours ago, fantom said:

The calculator I used compounded the daily interest and 100,000 came to 21,270,385 after 12 months which seems an extraordinary amount.

Interesting either way.

compoundaily.com

I make it 22,914,238 in total, compounded. But what's a couple of million or so? If it was possible to attain the c.21/3m, by compounding the daily interest, and being able to market trade in the multi-millions, there would be no need to ask for investor donations - such an obvious scam from people you don't know. 

 

Back to the real world, trading on Forex, I've found a source who makes an overall net profit (after performance commission) of around 24% per annum over the last 4 years using ultra-conservative stop-loss methods that (near as damn it) zero-cuts the risk of losing the whole stake. Not for the risk-averse or cynical investor, though. 

At least one government that I know of calls this place The land of scams.!!