Police have arrested nine suspects involved in a scam using the YouTube platform that resulted in a middle-school student in Nonthaburi taking his own life.
Pol Maj Gen Wiwat Kamchamnan, deputy commissioner of the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau (CCIB), said the police arrested a gang of scammers on Thursday following a case that saw a Mathayom 3 student in Pak Kret district hang himself from a tree on Sunday, after he left a suicide note for his parents.
The note said the victim was tricked into watching some advertisements on YouTube that were presented as a "mission" he had to complete to get paid. He was duped into investing in an online trading scheme, resulting in him stealing 14,000 baht from his mother.
He later begged the gang to return the money and then committed suicide.
On Tuesday, police arrested 33-year-old Naphaporn Homchan at a house in Ayutthaya's Tha Rua district.
On Thursday they arrested two more suspects -- Ratchanon Saijind, 38, and Chaiyawat Virasorn, 34 -- suspected of involvement in purchasing cryptocurrency using the victim's money.
The interrogation led police to arrest all members of the gang -- six people who owned "mule" accounts, the two cryptocurrency traders, and the administrator of an Instagram account.
