Prolific Nigerian romance scammer boss arrested by the CSD police twice in just over two years

[webfact]

Last week, Police Colonel Kissana Phathanacharoen (centre) gave details of a business based on Facebook which swindled ฿881 million from thousands of Thai women promising marriage to wealthy and affluent foreigners and sending them random photos pulled from online sources. In August, the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) announced the arrest of Nigerian romance scammer Ezeneche Uzochukwu Jerome (right) for the second time following his arrest by the police agency in May 2021 for the same criminal activity. It comes with the overwhelming majority of cybercrime complaints from the Thai public now centred on romance scams, with over ฿30 billion lost in an eleven-month period from March 1st 2022, to January 31st 2023. In July 2022, police revealed details of a 50-year-old Thai Chief Financial Officer who syphoned ฿6.2 billion from her company’s coffers to send to a fake profile she encountered on networking website LinkedIn (bottom left).

Wacky situation where a trusted 50-year-old Chief Financial Officer in a Thai conglomerate paid out ฿6.2 billion or $250 million to her online medical doctor lover based on a fake photo and story transmitted through the professional networking site Linked-In in 2022 through chat messaging.

A Nigerian man, arrested by Crime Suppression Division (CSD) police in simultaneous raids across 14 locations in Bangkok and six other provinces in August as the leader of a romance scam gang responsible for losses of over ฿800 million, sent out of the country between 2018 and 2021, was the same man arrested by police in May 2021 together with his Thai wife by the same police agency who appears to have been subsequently released by authorities after his initial arrest.

 

It comes as, last week, police revealed Thai women had paid ฿881 million to a fraudulent Facebook page called ‘Mae Sue Online’ which promised to marry them to wealthy professionals and foreigners for upfront fees as high as ฿112,000 and were subsequently sent images of well known third parties pulled at random from internet sites as fake matches. Police have also confirmed that the current tsunami of cybercrime in the kingdom is dominated by romance scams with a seminar in January estimating losses of ฿30 billion over an 11-month period and 200,000 complaints made to police agencies.

 

by James Morris and Son Nguyen

 

Full story: Thai Examiner 2023-09-29

 

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[neeray]

How can any fool get caught in a Nigerian romance scam in this day and age, especially since these dating scams have gone on for years and have been well exposed? I understand that many Thai females are desperate, and the scammer, often aided by a Thai gf or "wife", are slick and polished but the height of naivete is incomprehensible to me.

Hopefully, this time the authourities will lock the scammer boss up for good. Yeah, I know, scammer boss has big bucks available to buy his way out of prison.

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, webfact said:

Wacky situation where a trusted 50-year-old Chief Financial Officer in a Thai conglomerate paid out ฿6.2 billion or $250 million to her online medical doctor lover based on a fake photo and story transmitted through the professional networking site Linked-In in 2022 through chat messaging.

Wow....

[ChrisY1]

So many Thai women have the "left over" tag...or "2nd hand" tag....and they're paranoid.

Obviously, they're so easy to scam!

[RichardColeman]

Said it before - 1 year for every 1 million baht fraudulently stolen + 50% additional for non-repayment

 

Idiocy here is not the daft Thai women handing over millions, but the idiot Nigerians staying in the country and getting caught after receiving the money !

 

 

 

[neeray]

22 minutes ago, hotchilli said:

Wow....

Wacky is right. There must be a lot more to this story. The devil is in the details.

[jacko45k]

Just now, RichardColeman said:

Said it before - 1 year for every 1 million baht fraudulently stolen + 50% additional for non-repayment

 

Idiocy here is not the daft Thai women handing over millions, but the idiot Nigerians staying in the country and getting caught after receiving the money !

 

 

 

The Nigerians must feel safe enough to stay, confident in the ineptitude of the police, or maybe their ability to bribe their way out of trouble....

Perhaps the issue is more common than we learn of.....

[mikebell]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Police have also confirmed that the current tsunami of cybercrime in the kingdom is dominated by romance scams with a seminar in January estimating losses of ฿30 billion over an 11-month period

And the police want their cut.  Hence his 2nd arrest.

[ezzra]

I'm reading this and i can't believe what i'm reading that there are actually such dumb, Nay, beyond dumb, that can fall for such very  embarrassing and easy catfishing, small amount of money i can understand, but those numbers?

[brianthainess]

5 hours ago, webfact said:

Wacky situation where a trusted 50-year-old Chief Financial Officer in a Thai conglomerate paid out ฿6.2 billion

A Financial officer!  Did she keep her job? I'd sack her.

[biggles45]

'who appears to have been subsequently released by authorities after his initial arrest' 

 

Now why am I not surprised at this. Obviously a nice little earner for someone. No money to be made in jailing him then. 

[Hamus Yaigh]

>an online matchmaker called May Sue Online, which has already been the subject of 2,600 complaints to the police up to last week. 

 

Perhaps some of the company owners  May Sue In The Courts  their Thai CFO for siphoning off the money to start with? No info on that in the story.