Police from the Investigation Division of the Metropolitan Police Bureau (IDMB) have arrested a Buddhist nun on fraud charges for luring people to invest in a fake cloud storage rental business and loading false information on a computer, causing over one billion baht in damage to victims.
Pol Maj Gen Teeradet Thammasuthee, the IDMB commander, said the nun, whose name is Pattana Duangchana, 69, of Phothong district in Ang Thong province, was arrested on Saturday while she was at the Nasoka Vipassana Thitthammo meditation centre in tambon Mu Si of Pak Chong district, Nakhon Ratchasima province.
The arrest of the nun followed an investigation by IDMB police after 3,531 people filed complaints with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI).
The complainants said they had been duped by Concept Series Company Limited to invest in a cloud storage rental business.
The company offered a return much higher than that of ordinary financial institutions. The company, however, was not able to pay them as promised, causing total damages of 1.3 billion baht.
Of the 3,531 complainants, 2,878 had given statements to DSI investigators.
The DSI investigation had earlier led to the arrest a suspect identified as Supasan Duangchana, an executive of Concept Series Company Limited, police said. The other suspect, Mrs Pattana – Mr Supasan's mother – was then still at large.
While the DSI was in the process of seeking a court warrant for her arrest, Mae Tha police in Lampang province issued a warrant for the arrest of Mrs Pattana for the same offence.
Meanwhile, the IDMB, which also investigated the alleged offence, obtained information that the woman had been ordained as a nun practicing dhamma at the Nasoka Vipassana Thitthammo meditation centre in Pak Chong district, Nakhon Ratchasima province. The information led to her arrest on Saturday.
Her former husband was a monk at the meditation centre.
