Japanese man arrested for trying to scam deceased friend’s mother
The compatriot friend of a deceased Japanese man was arrested at his residence in Bangkok’s Ram-Indra neighbourhood on Tuesday (August 6) for allegedly sending emails asking his late friend’s mother to transfer cash.
Police said the Japanese suspect, identified as “Mr B”, had pleaded guilty, confessing to sending emails to his friend’s mother asking for money, and also using his friend’s credit card.
Police said he had confessed that he had known about the death of his friend, but did not tell the family of the deceased in order to get cash from them.
Police started investigating the case after the mother of the deceased filed a complaint with Khlong Tan Police Station on Monday (August 5), saying her son, Takahiro Nishi, 39, had been missing in Thailand for almost four years.
Police explained that Nishi had entered the Kingdom on March 5, 2020, via the immigration checkpoint in Nong Khai province for work in Bangkok.
Nishi and Mr B were arrested and detained at Bangkok Remand Prison in November 2020 for allegedly embezzling cash from a company in the capital. Mr B was granted bail on November 12, 2020 and Nishi’s bail was arranged by his friend’s wife a week later, on November 18.
Nishi rented a house in Nakhon Sawan province on March 5, 2021, and extended his visa on March 6, 2022. He and his friend escaped the embezzlement case after Bangkok South Kwaeng Court’s arrest warrant against them on September 8, 2022.
“Nishi died at Sansai Hospital in Chiang Mai on June 8, 2023,” Metropolitan Police Bureau deputy chief Pol Maj-General Noppasin Poolsawat said.
“There is no trace of any assault on the deceased, and the physician had concluded that he had died due to lung infection,” he said, adding that the body was being preserved at Maharaj Nakorn Chiang Mai Hospital.
Noppasin confirmed that police had informed the Japanese embassy about the matter, adding that they would send a DNA test result to relieve his family's concerns on whether the body was really their son’s.
In the scamming case, the police revealed that Nishi’s mother had received an email from her son on June 9, 2023. The email asked her for money for medical expenses of 1 million yen (around 242,000 baht), so she transferred the cash to a bank account in Japan, the police said.
An email demanding another 300,000 yen (around 72,000 baht) was sent to Nishi’s mother on June 21, 2023, followed by another email with the photo of her son in a bad shape on June 28, 2023. However, she did not transfer cash.
The mother said she had managed to contact her son via Line application on June 29, 2023, but had lost contact since then, the police said. The police added that they found irregularity in Nishi's credit card usage from July 4-6, 2024.
