THAI police arrested 19 Nigerians on the charges of running a marriage scam on Facebook and swindling Thai women by fooling them into sending money to clear customs duties for a non-existant engagement gift they had supposedly sent, Thai News Agency reported today (Oct. 18).
Pol. Maj. Gen. Ittipol Ittisarnchai, acting deputy head of Immigration Police, said of 272,000 baht was seized from the 19 Nigerian suspects as well as 10 mobile phones, 5 notebook computers, bank passbooks, ATM cards and lots of passports.
The scammers deceived Thai women by posting images of a handsome man on their Facebook page and once they won their trust they told the women they wanted to marry them and were sending them an engagement gift.
After that a Thai woman would call them saying there is something for them at the customs house and to collect it they have to pay customs duties and to transfer this amount of money to a bank account to get this parcel.
The amount money swindled from these Thai women varied from tens of thousands of baht to hundreds of thousands.
Once the money was transferred to their bank account the scammers would withdraw it, shut the Facebook page and move on.
Pol. Maj. Gen. Ittipol said it was Nigerians who were arrested last week who tipped them off about this scam. However while some of this new batch of arrested Nigerians confessed to operating a marriage scam others said the computers were not theirs.
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Top: One of the 19 Nigerian marriage scam suspects at the police station. Photo: Thai News Agency
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