83-year-old woman accuses police of being scammers while nearly losing S$200,000 in fraud case

THAILAND: An 83-year-old woman in Bangkok narrowly avoided losing 5 million baht (about S$200,000) to a scam but ended up accusing the police of being fraudsters when they tried to stop her from transferring the money.

According to local media outlet Thaiger, bank staff first raised the alarm after noticing multiple unusually large withdrawals from the elderly woman’s account.

They alerted the Cyber Crime Operations Center under the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, which then informed a local police post. Officers were sent to her home to intervene.

Instead of cooperating, the elderly woman turned on the police. She shouted at them outside her house, refused to listen, and even called the scammers to complain that officers were interfering with her money transfer.

Convinced the conmen—who pretended to be senior officials—were genuine, she trusted them over the police standing at her door.

With tensions rising, officers had to call in community leaders to persuade her that she was being scammed.

Investigators later discovered that she had already made five transfers between Sep 4 and 10, sending a total of 4.95 million baht (about S$199,760). Fortunately, quick action by both the bank and the police meant 2.5 million baht (around S$100,000) was frozen before the fraudsters could move it.

Police stressed that the case underlined the importance of bank vigilance and close coordination between agencies in fighting scams. They are now tracing the money trail in an effort to recover the rest of the funds.

Despite being cheated, the woman has not filed a formal report and remains unhappy with the police.

Investigations are ongoing.