Bank staffer arrested after siphoning tens of millions of baht from Pattaya expats

[Jonathan Fairfield]

Bank staffer arrested after siphoning tens of millions of baht from Pattaya expats

 

Image: Manager

 

Police have arrested the assistant manager of a branch of a bank in Pattaya who allegedly stole large sums of money from a group of expats and their Thai wives.

 

Police made the arrest after receiving complaints from customers of the branch that money had been going missing from their accounts.

 

Some of the victims also claimed the suspect duped them into investing in financial products, promising  high interest returns that instead, caused them to lose millions of baht.

 

Others said they had deposited their retirement money, which they had transferred from their home countries, into bank accounts set up by the suspect who also facilitated withdrawals, deposits and updating their bank books over several years.

 

The victims discovered that money had been taken from their accounts when their balances failed to match what was listed in their bank books.

 

Colonel Pisit Poonsap from Pattaya police said he expects more victims to come forward.

 

The branch of the bank in question where the fraud is alleged to have taken place was not named in the Manager report. 

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2021-02-02

 

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[CharlieH]

Probably a few (a lot) of resident expats will be checking their balances/banking affairs shortly in and around Pattaya.

 

This is not the first time this has been publicised about bank staff behaving in this manner.

 

Very unsettling for many.

[onebir]

1 minute ago, CharlieH said:

This is not the first time this has been publicised about bank staff behaving in this manner.

Suggests weak accounting controls in Thai banks?

[impulse]

7 minutes ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

The branch of the bank in question when the  fraud is alleged to have taken place was not named in the Manager report. 

 

Gotta love Thai defamation laws.  Hard to tell if your account may be one affected without knowing which bank.  Or decide whether to move your money.

 

[dabhand]

Bank info is in this Thaiger report if OK to post.

 

https://thethaiger.com/news/pattaya/hundreds-of-investors-caught-in-massive-kasikorn-bank-branch-fraud-in-pattaya

 

[ctxa]

1 hour ago, dabhand said:

Bank info is in this Thaiger report if OK to post.

 

https://thethaiger.com/news/pattaya/hundreds-of-investors-caught-in-massive-kasikorn-bank-branch-fraud-in-pattaya

 

Good that they rejected me when I tried to open account with them for "not having work permit"

[soi3eddie]

 

Apparently a lot of Chinese also caught up in this. The bank head office had apparently not issued any comment or statement at time of posting. Unsettling, but really? 3.5% PER MONTH? Lucky to get that per year in the real world with with no risk. Was the head bank manager unaware of the assistant manager's actions? Is that possible?

 

[dabhand]

12 minutes ago, onebir said:

Suggests weak accounting controls in Thai banks?

 

More like weak minds thinking that a monthly return of 3.5% was a low risk 'investment'.

[tgw]

17 minutes ago, onebir said:

Suggests weak accounting controls in Thai banks?

 

also weak control by the account owners.

everyone should check their balance in the system, there are many ways to do that, ATM, Internet Banking, Phone App (although I don't recommend using a phone app), and SMS service.

[worgeordie]

I suppose the box of tissues on the table is there

for those that want to dry their tears, other countries

have bank robbers,here they work inside the banks.

regards wor geordie

[ctxa]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

 

also weak control by the account owners.

everyone should check their balance in the system, there are many ways to do that, ATM, Internet Banking, Phone App (although I don't recommend using a phone app), and SMS service.

There is no reason not to use bank app, btw . In fact in most cases Internet Banking is much more insecure than the phone app.

Edited February 2, 2021 by ctxa

[tgw]

9 minutes ago, ctxa said:

There is no reason not to use bank app, btw . In fact in most cases Internet Banking is much more insecure than the phone app.

 

so... what's your second factor authentication on your phone?

[ctxa]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

 

so... what's your second factor authentication on your phone?

FaceID or TouchID.... 

 

But that's not where I was coming from, will 2FA matter when someone clones your session after having completed 2FA (cookies hijacking, IP spoofing, among many others)?... much harder to do on a smartphone than on a PC. 

Edited February 2, 2021 by ctxa

[FritsSikkink]

1 hour ago, onebir said:

Suggests weak accounting controls in Thai banks?

Greedy customers, who think it is normal to get a 3.5 % return on a monthly basis and need to bring cash to a staff member of the bank.

Edited February 2, 2021 by FritsSikkink

[Jingthing]

I can see there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Of course it's horrible that many people have lost their money.

On the other hand, as is usual with con man scams in general, they prey on the greed of their victims.

You've have to be a very naive expat or local to actually believe that 3.5 MONTHLY percent return on a bank deposit in Thailand isn't extremely suspect. Danger Will Robinson!

Obviously any perps should have to face the consequences under the law, but I'm wondering, in a situation like this where people weren't putting their money in normal bank financial vehicles, is there really much chance that the bank in question will be legally obligated to pay the money back? 

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by Jingthing

[kingofthemountain]

1 hour ago, soi3eddie said:

Was the head bank manager unaware of the assistant manager's actions? Is that possible?

Nope, it's not possible

the most difficult is to prove it

and to determine what was her degree of involvement

i mean how much she was paid to keep her eyes closed ?

[Jingthing]

18 minutes ago, FritsSikkink said:

Greedy customers, who think it is normal to get a 3.5 % return on a monthly basis and need to bring cash to a staff member of the bank.

Yes, and probably some of them ragging on their friends that they're suckers for not realizing TIT, this is the way we do in Thailand, you should take the "free money" too. Leave your ethics and common sense at the airport. Ca-ching. Zero balance? What you say?

Edited February 2, 2021 by Jingthing

[tgw]

40 minutes ago, ctxa said:

FaceID or TouchID.... 

 

But that's not where I was coming from, will 2FA matter when someone clones your session after having completed 2FA (cookies hijacking, IP spoofing, among many others)?... much harder to do on a smartphone than on a PC. 

 

actually I believe it's the opposite, getting full control on a phone is much easier than getting full control of a computer.  well, maybe make that of MY computer.

 

IP spoofing is a 20 year old thing, doesn't do much nowadays. cookies hijacking neither...
one possible vector today is an elaborate man in the middle attack by hijacking the router and cloning certificates, rerouting traffic, or a bona fide "full control" hack of the target. not easy at all to do, except if you get the user to execute a doctored executable, and even then it would have to be a specially made one that is not recognized by Windows defender.

[kingofthemountain]

1 hour ago, dabhand said:

 

More like weak minds thinking that a monthly return of 3.5% was a low risk 'investment'.

On this forum (I recomand you to read the part about bank and investissements)

there are a lot of people bragging they are able to cash 5% oreven more with their

investissements including in their bank accounts.

Personaly i am ''happy'' when i find something around 1%, usually it seems the ''normal'' interest

rate at the moment is ''0 , something''.

I am maybe unlucky with my interests, but so far the money invested is safe.

[ctxa]

1 hour ago, tgw said:

 

actually I believe it's the opposite, getting full control on a phone is much easier than getting full control of a computer.  well, maybe make that of MY computer.

 

IP spoofing is a 20 year old thing, doesn't do much nowadays. cookies hijacking neither...
one possible vector today is an elaborate man in the middle attack by hijacking the router and cloning certificates, rerouting traffic, or a bona fide "full control" hack of the target. not easy at all to do, except if you get the user to execute a doctored executable, and even then it would have to be a specially made one that is not recognized by Windows defender.

 

What certificate do you wanna clone from a router??

 

Cookie hijacking is the most important plan to cloning a session, but not the only one. IP Spoofing plays a role (as they bank will keep a record of it), DNS spoofing as well, screen size, and many others which are bank dependent. A potential hacker would have to study its target bank carefully before. 

 

Smartphones and specially unjailbroken iPhones have something called sandbox. Pretty much means that each app runs in its own environment separate from that of other apps, so it would be much harder for an app to access or inject code into another app. On Windows a hacker just needs to trick you into running his software as Administrator, and then he will have full control of the browser where you are using your internet banking and the browser's data. Android smartphones, I'm not very familiar with, but they also have in essence the same as the iPhone sandbox.

 

PS, if you don't believe all this, you can just have a look at my website: https://www.ctabuyo.com and you will see what I do.

Edited February 2, 2021 by ctxa

[Jingthing]

Well, it could have been worse.

At least they didn't short Gamestop. 

[ukrules]

3 hours ago, Jonathan Fairfield said:

The branch of the bank in question when the  fraud is alleged to have taken place was not named in the Manager report. 

Yes, the most important thing here is that the person who did it and the bank are never named.

 

How else are they supposed to find the other victims?

[PatOngo]

Who can remember a time when people used to rob banks, now banks rob people! ????

[mike787]

Welcome to LOS....enjoy your stay.

[Bruce Aussie Chiang Mai]

Regardless of so called greed of victims this still appears to be bank problem.

If money was removed from account without approval by a bank employee surely the bank is responsible.

I agree though you would be pretty dumb if not regularly checking balance or not knowing your balance.

????❤????????

[RichardColeman]

More to the point will everybody get their money back or will the bank claim the theft/investment was not their fault - me thinks the later

[scubascuba3]

This is Kasikorn in Pattaya Klang, my main branch, generally very good but they got a rogue employee. The bank should cover the losses, they can't riggle out of this surely. 

 

I doubt it's just this branch, as we know ideas get copied

Edited February 2, 2021 by scubascuba3

[nightfox]

No surprised to here its Kasikorn bank. I'm so glad I closed my account with those clowns. Worst most unprofessional bank I have ever dealt with.

[david555]

7 minutes ago, nightfox said:

No surprised to here its Kasikorn bank. I'm so glad I closed my account with those clowns. Worst most unprofessional bank I have ever dealt with.

11 years not One problem is my expieriance with them ....but i also would never ever believe  3.5 % a month ...

 

As i also never believed all those millions from  Nig...n.  emails ????

 

Edited February 2, 2021 by david555

[ezzra]

This is the only time where being poor is a blessing.. Nothing to nick here mate...