Man arrested for allegedly running Sinopharm jab scam
A 27-year-old was arrested in Nakhon Sawan’s Takhli district on Friday for allegedly tricking people into reserving Covid-19 jabs with him.
The Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA) recently filed a police complaint in Bangkok saying that somebody claiming to be a CRA representative was tricking people into paying for Sinopharm vaccines.
The suspect, Narongrit Sukheeket, claimed that he had responded to a CRA announcement calling for people to help distribute the vaccines. He said he joined the CRA OpenChat group, where he met a person called “Tookta” who claimed to be a CRA personnel.
This person allegedly told Narongrit to find bookings for Sinopharm vaccines at 699 baht per jab and that he would get 150 baht for each booking he got.
Hence, Narongrit said, he advertised the deal on his Facebook page and managed to get 50 bookings initially. For this he earned 7,500 baht. He later found another 15 people and tried to contact Tookta, but he/she had disappeared. He claimed he was not able to return the money to the victims, because he did not know who to return it to, adding that he only learned he was in trouble when he saw his profile being highlighted as that of a fraudster.
The suspect, who claimed that he is the one who has been tricked, was taken to the Criminal Court for detention.
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He stands to face charges of uploading forged/false information in a computer system in a manner that is likely to cause damage to a third party or the public and illegally using CRA’s emblem.