A group of people including doctors filed a complaint with police on Sunday, accusing a doctor at a well-known public hospital of embezzling 64 million baht from them by luring them into investing in a tour company from last year to early this year.
Leading the group of more than 10 people, Flg Off Dr Nijcha Rutthapichairak told reporters at the Crime Suppression Division that an acting squadron leader who was a doctor at a public hospital and her secondary-school friend had persuaded her and 37 other people to invest in a company called V Siam Agency Co.
The friend had claimed the investment in the tour company, which included room reservations at a hotel of her boyfriend, would give 6-18% monthly returns.
Flg Off Dr Nijcha, a 30-year-old doctor at a public hospital, said her friends in various circles had invested sums ranging from 80,000 to 12 million baht each due to the credibility of the doctor who worked at a well-known public hospital.
The physician said she was invited last July and decided to invest 500,000 baht in August last year. She was told the investment gave dividends of about 300,000 baht from last August to February but she did not withdraw the amount as she wanted to use it to invest more.
Flg Off Dr Nijcha said the monthly dividends stopped last month and she tried in vain to contact the friend. Her friend initially explained her bank accounts were frozen but later went incommunicado, Flg Off Dr Nijcha said.
When the doctor was not at her house and absent from work, the investors realised they had been duped, Flg Off Dr Nijcha said.
Half of the affected people were doctors and many were friends, she said. Most of them asked journalists not to photograph them.
They include engineers, university lecturers, military officers and flight attendants, Flg Off Dr Nijcha said.
In any case, she did not think the alleged embezzlement was a pyramid scheme since the victims had not been advised to recruit new investors for commission fees.
The Crime Suppression Division on Sunday advised the group to file a complaint with the Economic Crime Suppression Division.