Police To Probe Thai’s Bt1.9m ‘online Lottery Loss

[george]

Police to probe Thai’s Bt1.9m ‘online lottery loss’

BANGKOK: -- Police will today launch an investigation into a man’s claim that he lost more than Bt1.9 million to an Internetbased lottery scam.

Phongpat (not his real name), 38, said that last month he transferred Bt1.9 million to an overseas bank account as a required deposit for the ค4million (Bt196 million) online lottery prize he had purportedly won.

He said he entered the online lottery on June 6 after he clicked on a banner advertising it on a free email website, phantomemail.com.

The “lottery” operators contacted him via email a few days later, supposedly from Switzerland, informing him he had won a second prize of ค4 million.

The email message asked him to send his passport number and contact a Londonbased financial institution via email to prepare redemption papers, said Phongpat, who teaches computer science at a northern university.

Phongpat said that shortly afterwards he received a phone call and another email from a person who identified himself as a lottery official named Dr Raymond Smith. The message instructed Phongpat to open an account at an obscure overseas investment bank to redeem his prize.

After receiving Phongpat’s financial papers, Smith and the bank confirmed that the scheme had transferred ค4 million to this new bank account. The transfer was also confirmed when he checked his balance on the bank’s website.

Although he had paid an “extra large sum of money” to cover expenses such as the bankaccount’s tax and insurance, Phongpat said he could not transfer the money from the new overseas account to his Thai account.

When Phongpat contacted him over the phone, Smith assured him the money had been transferred.

The bank later notified Phongpat that he would be required to pay a mandatory deposit equal to 2 per cent of the lottery prize to have the money transferred to his account in Thailand. He then transferred Bt1 million to the bank.

He started to suspect he was entangled in an Internet fraud after the bank told him the Bt1 million would not be sufficient to cover the transfer and Smith offered to pay the remaining deposit fee.

“I discovered it was a scam after I found a warning against free online lotteries on the Internet. The warning showed email messages similar to the ones I received,” he said. Phongpat finally reported the alleged fraud on Tuesday.

LtColonel Nat Promthep, a detective at the Crime Suppression Division, said the police would conduct further inquiries today.

“We must first determine if such lottery schemes exists,” Nat said.

A lawenforcement official who specialises in Internet fraud, and who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Thai Internet users had lost money in several similar cases, but Phongpat’s was the most striking yet in terms of loss.

--The Nation 2004-07-08

[konangrit]

said Phongpat, who teaches computer science at a northern university.

After falling for a scam like that maybe he should consider teaching something other than computer sciences.

[kwiz117]

Police will today launch an investigation into a man’s claim that he lost more than Bt1.9 million to an Internetbased lottery scam.

Phongpat (not his real name), 38, said that last month he transferred Bt1.9 million to an overseas bank account as a required deposit for the ค4million (Bt196 million) online lottery prize he had purportedly won.

Interesting if he can disclose how he transferred such an amount from Thailand.

[kwiz117]

“We must first determine if such lottery schemes exists,” Nat said.

No wonder...