A RETIRED state-owned electricity company employee hanged himself in his house after being swindled by call centre scammers who claimed to be running a garment business and offered handsome return on investment, Amarin TV said this morning (Aug.11).
Policemen from Chanthaburi city station found the body of Mr. Prichakorn (surname withheld), who just turned 71, hanging from a roof beam in the middle of his house. Next to him on a chair was well-ironed pair of black pants and shirt and a suicide note bidding farewell to his brother,sister,son and close neighbours.
Mrs. Pinkaew, a close friend of the deceased, said Prichakorn retired about 10 years ago and moved from his house in Phuket to live in a rented house in Chanthaburi about a year ago with approximately 100,000 baht his ex-wife had given him.
He was cheated out of 20,000 baht by a call centre gang around two months ago and became depressed and suicidal with his neighbours and herself giving him moral support, she said.
Pinkaew said she spoke to him the day before yesterday and he mentioned that it was his birthday and he wanted to eat for the last time. Neighbours noticed that he did not come out of his house the next the morning and when he still did not step out of his home by nightfall they got suspicious and upon going in saw that he had hanged himself.
Mr. Maitree,35, the owner of an adjacent noodle shop, said the deceased had asked him to help transfer money because he did not know how to do so and that this is for an investment in a garment business. He later said that he had transferred the cash transfer slip to the website allegedly running the garment business but when he opened the website again he saw that the image of the person running it had disappeared with there only being an avatar there.
He warned him that he had probably been swindled and on the fourth day the deceased told him that this is what had happened.
This call centre used their usual tactic of initially transferring return on investment to lure victims into their net and after that demanding more investment and not transferring additional return until this was paid up.
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Policemen investigating the suicide of a call centre victim in Chanthaburi. Photos: Naewna
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