A 19-year-old student is alleged to have committed suicide by hanging herself after a scam gang tricked her into paying for an iPhone 13 that she never received. Police are getting ready to obtain arrest warrants for the scammers.
The Mathayom 6 (Grade 12) student had contacted the “Hannah” mobile phone shop over Facebook to claim she wanted to purchase a phone, according to a police inquiry.
The website listed a fictitious address in Chiang Rai’s Mae Sai area, and investigations revealed that the shop did not actually exist.
The girl, who resided in the southern province of Nakhon Si Thammarat, was tricked into paying for an iPhone 13 by the group, who also forced her to make a down payment and pay other expenditures over time.
The amount the girl ultimately paid was 18,500 baht. Through a bank account held in the name of Dokkaew Kaewjerm, the funds were sent to the imaginary store. Since then, the account has been frozen.
Additionally, the victim was duped into sending 2,000 baht as a “guarantee” payment.
After sending the last payment but not receiving a phone, the girl allegedly realized she was being duped, according to the authorities. She unsuccessfully attempted to message the merchant using a Line chat group, only to discover that she had been blacklisted.
She was under a great deal of stress, worried that her family would punish her for borrowing money from two classmates to purchase equipment that the family could not afford.
She lamented the hardship she was under in her final chat message to her friends. Her pals became concerned when the teen’s texts abruptly stopped and informed her relatives.
On Monday in Nakhon Si Thammarat’s Pak Phanang district, tambon Koh Thuad, the girl hanged herself.
The victim’s parents complained to the police online on Tuesday, and Koh Thuad police then forwarded the case to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), according to Pol Lt Gen Worawat Watnakhonbancha, the head of the CCIB.
According to Pol Lt Gen Worawat, CCIB Division 5 police are tracking the girl’s payments to the vendor as well as the phony shop’s Facebook page and IP address.
Within two days, the suspects should be apprehended, according to police. Arrest warrants have already been issued based on the evidence gathered.
The commander of Division 5, Pol Maj Gen Charin Kopatta, claimed that the gang operated four mule bank accounts, one in Chaiyaphum and the others in Chiang Rai.
According to authorities, the girl sent money transfers to Chiang Rai, from which they would have been delivered to a bank in the border town of Tachileik in Myanmar.
When questioned by authorities in Chaiyaphum, Ms. Dokkaew, the owner of the mule account that was used to accept the girl’s cash, denied having any connection to the group.
She insisted that she was unaware that the account had been opened using her personal information, including her citizenship ID card.
The 27-year-old proprietor of a “Family” phone shop in Nakhon Sawan reported the scammers to the police on Wednesday after finding that they had used the company’s branding on their website.
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