School files fraud complaint with CSD after allegedly being duped by trip ‘organiser’
A school deputy director on Tuesday filed a fraud complaint with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) against a former lecturer at a Bangkok university after the school had hired her to arrange a 15-day summer-camp trip to the UK for 30 students in October, but later realised they had been duped.
The deputy director said the school had chosen 33-year-old female suspect Asama Damrongpol’s apparently credible company to arrange the trip for a cheap price of Bt90,000 per student.
After they were later unable to contact her at her company office or at home, and the trip did not take place, the school found out from the university, where Asama had claimed to be working as an English Language Department head, that she had already ended her employment there.
It was at this point that they decided to file a complaint with Bung Kum police station in Bangkok.
The school executive said what was more worrying now was that some of the students’ personal documents, which they had given to the suspect to proceed with passport and visa applications, would turn out to be used in securing illegal loans.
At least one student’s document has reportedly used in borrowing Bt1 million from a money-lender, the executive said.
The complaint-lodging move by the school executive follows a complaint filed on Monday afternoon with the CSD by Asama’s business partner, 44-year-old Sombat Sihawong.
Sombat reportedly paid Bt1 million to invest in her company but, before he could get any return on the investment, he learned about others who were allegedly being lured into investing Bt600,000 to Bt2 million each in the business.