Arrested woman claims stolen ID used by fraudsters
A 24-year-old Thai woman filed a complaint at the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) on Tuesday after her stolen Thai ID card was allegedly used by fraudsters, resulting in a warrant being issued for her arrest. Insisting she was innocent, private company worker Nicha Kiatthanapaiboon said she wanted police to bring to justice the person or persons who used her card to commit fraud.
Nicha filed the complaint to the CSD head office in Bangkok along with evidence including related documents and a video clip in which a female suspect is shown opening an account with a bank in the Lat Phrao area under her name.
She claimed that she lost a wallet containing her Thai ID card in early October. It was then used by unknown persons to open nine bank accounts at seven banks. Each bank account reportedly had a large amount of money being withdrawn and deposited.
It was reported that a Thai bank had alerted Nicha on December 8 that a bank account opened under her name since October 21 had received Bt360,000 wired from aboard in November.
As she didn’t open the account, she filed a police complaint in Bangkok and secured a search warrant to get information from the bank during December 10-12. She discovered that her ID card had been used by criminals to open accounts at several banks.
In the meantime, an unnamed female victim filed a police complaint that she had been duped out of Bt1.3 million in Tak’s Ban Tak district by a foreign man on Facebook who asked her to wire the money to a bank account under Nicha’s name.
Police sent a summons for Nicha on December 28. They subsequently secured an arrest warrant for fraud when she did not respond to the summons because she was unavailable.
Nicha said she went to see the police on January 6 to express her innocence but was taken into custody and sentenced to court-ordered detention before she was granted bail release on Monday.
Nicha urged banks to be more careful when taking applications for bank accounts by checking if the applicant’s appearance matched the photo on the documents and other information.
Nicha said she had applied for a new ID card after her wallet went missing but the culprit could still use the old card to open bank accounts.
CSD chief Pol Maj General Maitree Chimcherd said his agency would investigate and provide justice for Nicha, who apparently turned out to be a victim.
Maitree said he had instructed his deputy Pol Colonel Chakrit Sawatdee to handle the case and contact Ban Tak police to transfer the case to CSD. He said the agency would also consider if the banks would be accountable for Nicha’s ordeal.
The video clip that Nicha submitted showed a woman in her 30s wearing a facemask opening a bank account using Nicha’s ID card, a police source said.