18 bank account holders lose millions to slippery investment advisor

Nanthawat, 36, was arrested at his rented home in Bangkok’s Prawet district on Monday. He was tracked down by officers from Khok Kram Police Station.

The suspect’s surname and the name of the bank he worked for are being withheld.

Police said an arrest warrant for Nanthwat had been issued by Min Buri court. He was wanted for allegedly siphoning money from a VIP bank client’s account from April 1, 2020, to June 5, 2023. He had allegedly stolen 94.82 million baht from this account.

Investigators have yet to determine how much he stole from 17 other VIP clients.

Nanthawat was given the job of taking care of and providing investment advice to clients whose savings were worth more than 10 million baht.

The arrest warrant stated that Nanthawat had lured the clients into making investments that were not related to his bank. He also used an app to disguise his personal bank account to look like the bank branch’s official account.

When the clients invested in the businesses he recommended, the money would land in Nanthawat’s personal account, police said.

In one case, he allegedly sneakily used a client’s SIM card to transfer huge sums to his own account, police said. The total transferred was more than 90 million baht.

The bank has only managed to retrieve and return 21.49 million baht to the client.

The account holder only recently learned he had been cheated when he was alerted by the bank that his balance was not enough to cover his insurance premium.

Police said the suspect has allegedly wasted most of the money on gold and stock trading and renting a house for 60,000 baht per month.