Thai police have arrested a 52-year-old woman at Hat Yai Airport for her alleged role in a $86 million romance scam linked to a Nigerian-led syndicate
A 52-year-old Thai woman, suspected of involvement in Thailand’s largest romance scam, has been arrested upon arrival at Hat Yai Airport.
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The Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) confirmed that Orathai (surname withheld) was detained on Saturday after flying in from Malaysia.
She was wanted on multiple charges, including membership in a secret society, involvement in a criminal organisation, transnational crime, identity fraud, and money laundering.
Authorities allege that she played a role in assisting a Nigerian-led syndicate responsible for a 2022 scam that defrauded a multinational company of 6.3 billion baht (approximately USD 86 million).
The scam, considered Thailand’s most expensive romance fraud case, involved criminals posing as a U.S. Army doctor in Afghanistan using a fake LinkedIn profile.
They successfully deceived the chief financial officer (CFO) of a multinational company’s Thai branch, siphoning billions in the process.
The CFO was later arrested and charged with theft, while nearly 100 individuals, including Thai and Nigerian nationals, have been implicated.
According to police, Orathai admitted to being the person named in the warrant but claimed she was unaware of her involvement in fraud.
She alleged that her Nigerian partner, whom she met in Malaysia in 2017 while working at a massage shop, convinced her to open multiple bank accounts in Thailand on his behalf.
She stated that he covered all her expenses for two years and offered her 6,500 baht per account she opened. Investigators, however, uncovered financial links between her accounts and fraudulent transactions linked to the scam.
“I only knew later that my bank accounts had been used to receive money from people who had been defrauded,” she told police.
