A 52-year-old woman has been arrested in Thailand on suspicion of involvement in the largest romance scam ever recorded in the country.
Oretai (name changed) was apprehended at Hat Yai International Airport and is accused of opening bank accounts for her Nigerian lover, which were allegedly used to launder proceeds from a fraudulent scheme totaling 6.2 billion baht ($182.8 million).
The scheme began to unravel in March 2020, when the financial director of the Thai branch of EssilorLuxottica was arrested for embezzling $272 million from the company’s account in New York. The woman had met a fraudster on LinkedIn, who posed as an American military doctor stationed in Afghanistan.
After more than 50,000 WhatsApp messages, the scammer convinced the victim that the funds were needed to cover expenses for transferring an inheritance to Thailand. Over a period of three months, she conducted 251 transactions across 112 bank accounts in 17 different countries. As a result, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Oretai had been on the run, wanted for participation in a transnational criminal organization and money laundering. According to police reports, the Nigerian man allegedly persuaded her over two years to open bank accounts in her name, claiming that foreign nationals face difficulties in conducting financial transactions in Thailand. It was later revealed that these accounts had been used to launder stolen funds from EssilorLuxottica.
As early as 2022, authorities had arrested 21 Thai citizens and two Nigerians in Malaysia in connection with the case.
Romance scams remain a pressing issue, particularly in Southeast Asia, where organized criminal networks operate at scale, preying on victims worldwide. According to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), romance fraud schemes resulted in losses totaling $1.3 billion in 2022 alone.
