A young woman has asked Crime Suppression Division police to take action against a member of a call centre gang who used her lost ID card to open bank accounts they used to swindle people, and led to her being arrested for a crime she did not commit.
Nicha Kiartthanapaiboon, 24, on Tuesday sought help from the CSD to track down the person she said used her lost ID to open nine bank accounts.
She submitted a video clip showing a woman opening an account with Krungthai Bank’s Lat Phrao branch as evidence.
Ms Nicha was accompanied by her elder sister Punyada Kokmas, 33, when she met CSD commander Maitree Chimcherd and deputy chief Chakrit Sawasdee.
She told them she had travelled from Nonthaburi’s Bang Yai district to Lak Song area in Bangkok by bus on Oct 6 last year. On arrival she discovered her purse containing her ID card and other items had vanished.
She immediately advised the bank to block her ATM card and went to a nearby district office to report the loss and apply for a replacement ID card the following day.
And then she later learned that on Dec 28 she had been summonsed to report to police. She was not at the house at the time and police later showed up at her place of employment to arrest her, but again she was not in the office at the time.
On Jan 6, she decided to go to see the CSD after she learned that someone had used her lost ID card to open a total of nine bank accounts at seven banks. Each account showed transfers involving hundreds of thousands of baht.
CSD police then informed her she had outstanding charges against her and was wanted on an arrest warrant.
She was handed over to Ban Tak police station in northern Tak province. Local police had taken her to court and obtained permission to further detain her. She was initially refused bail, but was finally released the following day. She then sought help from the CSD, again.
Ms Nicha insisted she was not involved with the call centre scammers, but fell victim to them after losing her ID card. She appealed to police to arrest the people who used her ID in fooling other people into sending them money.
She said the banks should have strictly checked the veracity of the documents used and the identity of whoever opened the nine new accounts. She had reported the loss to district officials so they could cancel her ID card and she had obtained a new one.
Her sister, Ms Punyada, questioned the action of Ban Tak police in quickly seeking court approval to detain her without further questioning.
She said Ms Micha would file both civil and criminal suits against the banks involved.
Pol Maj Gen Maitree said the CSD would ensure justice for the woman. She had fallen victim to a gang of criminals.
He assigned the case to Pol Col Chakrit, who would coordinate with Ban Tak police station and transfer the case to the CSD.
A hunt would be launched for the woman who used the lost ID card to open the bank accounts.
Footage from a security camera at KTB branch in Lat Phrao showed a woman about 30 years of age and wearing a face mask opening a bank account using Ms Nicha’s lost ID card.
Nicha Kiartthanapaiboon arrives at the Crime Suppression Division on Tuesday to report her problem after her lost ID card fell into the hands of a phone scam gang. (Photo by Apichart Jinakul)