A former election candidate of the Paradonraphab Party, Anonvat Vorametchayangkoon, is in hot water again after two women accused him of cheating them out of 520,000 baht in illegal face mask sales.
One victim did not get 600 boxes of three-ply masks she had ordered to donate to a school while the other received nothing after purchasing 200 boxes for use among her family and at a hospital, according to complaints lodged with the Consumer Protection Police Division on Monday.
The two said they bought the masks via a Facebook page Mr Anonvat allegedly used to advertise his products. They were told to transfer the money to a bank account in the name of “Phakkharaphon”.
However, Mr Anonvat only delivered 200 boxes of “substandard” masks to one client and did not send the products to the other at all, the victims said.
One woman said a man who claimed he to be Phakkharaphon called her, saying his bank account had been used without his consent.
“We want police to charge Mr Anonvat with fraud,” Atchariya Ruangrattanaphong, chairman of the Help Crime Victims Club, said as he helped the two victims make their complaints.
Mr Anonvat was arrested last week in Wang Thong Lang area in Bangkok in connection with the alleged hoarding of 200 million face masks by Sornsuvee “Boy” Poo raveenasawatchari, 47, who was also nabbed for putting false information into a computer system about face mask sales.
The Sornsuvee case earlier hit the headlines after the man took a photo with a close aid of Deputy Agriculture and Cooperatives Minister Thamanat Prompow.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Protection Police Division and Food and Drug Administration officials confiscated illegal face masks, hand sanitiser and other items, worth 50 million baht in total, in their latest crackdown.
Among the suspects are two Chinese nationals who were accused of importing medical equipment without registering their company or providing authorities with details of 350,000 face masks they had imported, officials said.
