Municipal clerk nabbed for B15m embezzlement

A financial clerk of a subdistrict municipality in Nakhon Sawan has been arrested by Anti-Corruption Division (ACD) police after she was found to have siphoned over 15.8 million baht from her agency's finance office.

Patchara Prasithikam, 41, a financial clerk at the accounting department of the Tambon Lat Yao Municipality, was arrested on Thursday morning at a meeting room of the municipality in Lat Yao district, said Pol Maj Gen Jaroonkiat Pankaew, the ACD commander.

He said an investigation was launched after the municipality detected money had been unusually withdrawn from its bank account for unknown reasons 215 times from Jan 26, 2022, to Jan 17 this year. The total amount of money withdrawn was 15,867,275 baht.

ACD police then found that the missing money had been withdrawn by Ms Patchara for her personal use since she had the PIN code of the bank account, leading to her arrest.

The police would search the suspect’s house to look for more evidence. Three witnesses had been summoned to testify in connection with the withdrawals.

Ms Patchara allegedly confessed she had used the money to repay loans she had obtained via mobile gambling applications. She claimed she had received threats from the lenders whenever she was unable to pay back the money.

The woman said she committed the offence alone, and nobody else, including her husband and office colleagues, was involved.

Pol Lt Col Siriong Sritula, a regional director of the Public Sector Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), said his office has received complaints that about 200 million baht had been siphoned from finance offices of various local administrations throughout the country. 

Investigations have been launched into the complaints, he added.