A woman, 40, was arrested in Chaiyaphum province for allegedly opening a mule bank account for a Cambodia-based scam gang that tricked Thai-British beauty queen Charlotte Austin out of 4 million baht.
Pol Lt Gen Trairong Phewphan, acting commissioner of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau, said on Sunday that the woman suspect, identified only as Parichat, was arrested at a house in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum on Saturday.
According to the acting commissioner, the woman and her husband had been brought illegally into Cambodia from Sa Kaeo province a few days before the beauty queen was deceived.
On Cambodian soil, the woman suspect was brought to a building where a Chinese-led scam gang operated. She was hired for 3,500 baht to open a bank account for the gang. In the building the suspect had her face scanned in the process of opening the account.
The suspect told police that there were about 20 Thai people in the building, which also contained mock offices of bogus Thai authorities who were actually scammers.
Pol Lt Gen Trairong said Ms Austin’s money was transferred to the account of Ms Parichat, transformed into digital money and forwarded to an account of a Chinese suspect. An investigation into the case was continuing, he said.
Last Tuesday Ms Austin told a press conference that she received a call on Dec 7 from a man claiming to be an official at the Department of Special Investigation.
He told her that she was suspected of laundering money in a case concerning scandal-hit Stark Corporation. The caller ordered her to transfer 4 million baht so that “authorities” could check whether she was innocent.
The 25-year-old 5th runner-up of Miss Grand Thailand in 2022 followed the instructions. She made three transfers of a total of 4 million baht but never received her money back as promised.
