Bangkok Post – Woman arrested over B300m forex trading scam

SONGKHLA: A woman has been arrested for allegedly swindling 300 million baht from investors through a forex trading scam.

Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) police on Sunday apprehended a 51-year-old woman, whose name was withheld, in Songkhla’s Sadao district on a warrant issued by the Bangkok South Criminal Court in March 2021, ending an almost three-year run.

The suspect was allegedly part of a four-member gang that lured 250 people into participating in what they believed to be foreign currency trading, with promises of high returns.

Pol Maj Gen Putthidej Boonkrapheu, the ECD chief, said the 250 victims had filed complaints with the DSI, after transferring amounts ranging from 20,000 baht to 6 million baht to the gang’s company. The gang claimed the money would be invested in two leading forex brokers, IronFX and FXPrimus.

The investors received returns during the first three months before the gang started to give excuses for late payments, then closed their company and finally vanished.  

The three accomplices were a Thai woman and two Malaysian men, the ECD chief said. The woman, identified only as Kanokratch, has been arrested, but the Malaysians have since fled the country. They face charges of fraud and obtaining loans amounting to public cheating and fraud. 

The 51-year-old woman arrested on Sunday denied the charges, Pol Maj Gen Putthidej said.

In a separate case, police arrested a man identified only as Chatchai, 42, in Pathum Thani’s Khlong Luang district for allegedly luring people to sink money into a forex, gold and digital currency investment scam.  

Pol Maj Gen Putthidej said Mr Chatchai and his accomplices, who are wanted on arrest warrants, formed three companies to scam 158 investors of 31 million baht after they promised to pay a dividend as high as 300%.