Tokyogurl, Cheerio sentenced to detention in SEA Games cheating case
The court sentenced Tokyogurl and Cheerio to six months in prison without suspension in the SEA Games cheating case. Their guilty pleas halved the term to three months, which was then converted to three months’ detention.
At 9am on Tuesday (March 17), the Pathumwan District Court was scheduled to deliver its ruling in a case brought by prosecutors against Naphat, 29, known by the gaming alias Tokyogurl, a former member of Thailand’s national esports team, and Chaiyo, 23, known as Cheerio, a well-known gamer.
The two were jointly charged as the first and second defendants with unlawfully obtaining knowledge of specific security measures designed to prevent access to another person’s computer system and improperly disclosing them in a manner likely to cause damage to others, as well as jointly gaining unauthorised access to computer data protected by specific access controls that were not intended for them, in connection with the 33rd SEA Games, which Thailand hosted.
Both defendants had previously pleaded guilty and were granted bail.
Most recently, the Pathumwan District Court sentenced Tokyogurl and her co-defendant to six months in prison without suspension.
However, because both defendants confessed, the court reduced the sentence by half to three months and converted it to three months’ detention, citing the serious damage caused to the credibility of the esports athlete selection process and the harm done to the country’s reputation.
The cheating took place during the 33rd SEA Games, when Thailand’s women’s Arena of Valor (RoV) team faced Vietnam on December 15, 2025, at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.
During the semi-final, the Thai players were disqualified after the match was suspected of being tampered with, sparking public outrage. The Thai Esports Association investigated the incident and confirmed that match-fixing had taken place before filing a complaint with the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB).
Naphat, a member of the Thai national esports team, had been given a unique username, THA_NAPHA, to access the official game account for the competition.
However, investigators found that Naphat had shared both her username and password with Chaiyo. It was later discovered that Chaiyo had attempted to log in several times in order to play on her behalf.
On the day of the match, Naphat swapped her mobile phone, which had the Discord application installed, with the official competition phone. She allowed Chaiyo to log into the game in advance, intending for him to play in the competition while sharing the screen with her. However, due to a technical problem, Naphat ultimately had to play the match herself.
During the game, officials noticed that she had switched screens, exposing an ongoing Discord conversation with Chaiyo. The match was then paused, and an investigation confirmed the violation, leading to the disqualification of the Thai women’s team.
Police later uncovered key evidence during the investigation, including the phone used by Chaiyo to log into the official game account and IP address logs showing his access. Chat records between the two suspects further confirmed the cheating scheme.
