13 Thais and a 45-year-old Nigerian were detained by Royal Thai Police for running a covert romance scam.
On August 24, 2023, following police operations in seven provinces, the Nigerian national known as Ezeneche Uzochukwu Jerome, his Thai girlfriend, and additional suspects were all taken into custody.
According to the police, over the course of four years, the scam operation was able to cheat hundreds of victims throughout Thailand out of more than 8000 million baht.
The victims reported a romance scam gang at the start of 2022, according to a statement released on Friday, August 25, by the Commissioner of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), Montri Tatekhan.
The victims told the police that the con artists contacted them on social media using fake profiles of attractive foreign women.
They were told by the con artists that they were American soldiers serving in Syria. After earning the victims’ trust, they would express a desire to visit the victims in Thailand.
However, they would let the victim know ahead of time that they sent gifts or a few packages into Bangkok via the airports.
They would then seduce the victims into paying taxes or other necessary expenses on their behalf in advance, and they would reimburse the victims when they met.
The victims were then contacted by a group of Thai scammers posing as airport authorities who demanded payment for the purported parcel-receiving procedure.
The con artist would vanish and close all communication channels with the victims after getting the desired amount.
The police carried out additional inquiries before they were able to identify Ezeneche Uzochukwu Jerome, the gang’s 45-year-old leader. While under investigation for a love scam in 2018, Jerome was able to re-enter the fray.
Each con artist would immediately transfer money from the victim into an account aboard, the officer learned after looking into the gang’s financial dealings.
The gang was successful in extorting over 800 million Baht from victims between 2018 and 2022, depositing it into a foreign bank account.
Officers conducted raids on 14 suspicious locations across the nation after the criminal activity was supported and proven by a number of damning pieces of evidence, including seven suspicious locations in Bangkok, one in Pathum Thani, two in Pitsanuloak, one in Uthai Thani, one in Uttaradit, one in Kamphaeng Phet, and one in Pichit.
Including the gang leader Jerome and 13 Thais, an officer detained 14 suspects in the operation who were responsible for the scams.
Additional items seized by the officers included 11 mobile phones, 10 bank accounts, 18 debit cards, 2 computers, 2 Channel bags, and a number of documents related to the financial transactions to work abroad.
The girlfriend of the Nigerian man stated that they were no longer dating.
She claims that the man extended an invitation for her to join the gang after their breakup. Due to her financial hardships and unemployed status, she was unable to decline.
