Course scammer flees to HK

Course scammer flees to HK

The alleged scammer beat feet out of Thailand on the pre-dawn flight Tuesday of Hongkong Airlines Flight HX780 just ahead of police with an arrest warrant. (YouTube/iNop Studio1981)
The alleged scammer beat feet out of Thailand on the pre-dawn flight Tuesday of Hongkong Airlines Flight HX780 just ahead of police with an arrest warrant. (YouTube/iNop Studio1981)

A private university lecturer accused of duping 30 students into paying money for a non-existent summer language course in England has fled the country.

Asama Dumrongpol, 33, was head of the English language department at Bangkok University's Rangsit campus until she was recently dismissed.

She left on flight HX780 bound for Hong Kong from Suvarnabhumi airport at 4am on Tuesday, a police source said.

The source said that the woman fled the country after representatives from Bodindecha 2 School filed a complaint against her with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) for allegedly embezzling their students.

Kittiphop Pawanathkullathorn, deputy director of the school, told CSD investigators that 30 students had been fooled into paying 90,000 baht each to Ms Asama for a summer language course in England, from Oct 13-27.

After the payments were made, Ms Asama postponed the trip, claiming the accommodation was fully booked. The school checked with the accommodation manager in England and learned that she had not paid for the accommodation, Mr Kittiphop said.

The school tried to contact Ms Asama about the trip, but she kept postponing it. They have been unable to contact her since Oct 31, he said.

The students were swindled out of 2.7 million baht in total.

The source said that another group of at least 10 people had also filed a complaint Ms Asama, alleging that she persuaded them to invest in a company that sends students on overseas language exchange programmes.

They claimed Ms Asama defrauded them of amounts ranging between 600,000 baht to 2 million baht.

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