Pim Kemasingki, Citylife Media Group’s editor-in-chief reported to Captain Amornchai Trangwatcharakul at Phuping Rajaniwat Police Station on Saturday 20th June after discovering a large loss from her Siam Commercial Bank account.
She discovered on Friday that her account at SCB only had 24 baht remaining and went to the Nimmanhaemin Branch of the bank to request a statement. That night an investigative official from SCB called to say that Jessadaporn Khamtong, 26, a junior clerk at Citylife Media Group, and past employee of Siam Commercial Bank, had been withdrawing money from her account via AirPay, an online wallet app since April 19th during the lockdown, which then was immediately withdrawn to Jessadaporn’s SCB and Kbank accounts before disappearing into an online gambling website.
June 25th, 2020, the Investigation Division Provincial Police Region 5 arrested Jessadaporn, at Citylife Group’s office at 5th Avenue complex for theft and receiving of stolen property. The accused secretly hacked her employer’s bank account information and proceeded to transfer the money into her account through AirPay application more than 115 times from April 19th, 2020 until June 11th, 2020 to the amount of 3,975,841 baht. Later in the same day, her 31 year old husband, Atibodee gave himself up to the police after hearing that there was also an arrest warrant for him.
Jessadaporn confessed to police that she had stolen the money from the account. She worked as a junior admin for the company and had access to her employer’s ID card, phone number, and bank account number. What is still unclear is how she accessed the money as she had no authority for internet banking.
Pim Kemasingki, after talking to Jessadaporn’s husband and the police today, vouched for her husband, as he is also suspected of being his wife’s victim, and he was allowed out on 200,000 baht bail to care for their one year old daughter. Jessadaporn faces three to five years in jail for each of the 115 transactions with a minimum of a 20 years jail sentence ahead.