A Thai woman and two African men, from Cameroon and Ivory Coast, have been arrested for allegedly swindling a German businessman of 57 million baht in a rubber glove scam.
The Consumer Protection Police Division arrested Thanwaros Vorasarn 24; Ferdiman Ayuk Agbor, 34, of Cameroon, and Souhadon Traore, 35, of Ivory Coast on charges of colluding in public fraud, putting false information into a computer system and money laundering.
They also seized from them bank accounts, cash and valuable items, Pol Maj Gen Natthasak Chaowanasai, CPPD commander, said.
The arrests followed a complaint by a German national in the United Arab Emirates that he had bought rubber gloves from Ms Thanwaros, via the website www.grandig.com.
The complainant then transferred US1.82 million (about 57.2 million baht) to the bank account she nominated. No gloves were ever delivered to him and the woman could not be contacted.
The CPPD began an investigation and found that a man identified as Mepony Toure, 28, who was close to Ms Thanwaros and lived abroad, had arranged for her to operate the company in Thailand and open a bank account.
After the complainant deposited the money in the nominated account, Mr Toure had asked the woman to withdraw some of the money and give it to two friends. Mr Agbor allegedly received 1.6 million baht, and Mr Traore about 70,000 baht. Ms Thanwaros was given about 400,000 baht, according to Pol Col Chetphan Kiticharoensak, superintendent of CPPD sub-division 1.
The investigators obtained a court approval to arrest the four gang members. All except Mr Toure were caught. He remained abroad.
Pol Col Chetphan said the investigation team had sought cooperation from Interpol to arrest the fourth suspect.