A woman has been arrested for public swindle after a teenage student she is alleged to have cheated out of 14,000 baht he invested with her committed suicide.
Pol Maj Gen Wiwat Khamchamnan, deputy commissioner of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), said Napaporn Homchan, 33, was detained on Wednesday morning at a house in Tha Rua district, Ayutthaya province. A mobile phone she allegedly used to commit the crime was impounded as evidence.
The arrest came after a boy in Mathayom 3 at a school in Nonthaburi's Pak Kret district recently hanged himself from a tree, leaving a suicide note for his parents. He said he had been drawn by a promotion on YouTube to invest in 10 items for sale online and was promised a very high return.
He transferred 14,000 baht in total, money he slowly took from his mother, to the woman's account. Later he became aware that he might have been cheated and asked unsuccessfully for his money back, leading to him taking his own life.
The boy's parents went to see deputy national police chief Pol Gen Torsak Sukwimol and filed a complaint. The CCIB investigated and subsequently obtained a warrant for Ms Napaporn's arrest from a Nonthaburi court.
After the arrest, police examined her account and learned that the money had been transferred to three other people.
Ms Napaporn allegedly said she was hired via a Facebook page to open two bank accounts to accept money from investors.
She was initially charged with public swindle and violating the Computer Crimes Act. Investigators were now looking for the three other people, Pol Maj Gen Wiwat said.
