3On the night of April 11, about 1,000 people found themselves stranded at Suvarnabhumi airport and discovered they had been cheated into paying for a tour to Japan which did not exist.
The victims said they purchased the tour, scheduled for April 11-16, for 9,730-20,000 baht each from WealthEver Co, a company selling food supplements, run by Pasist Arinchalapis, alias Sin Sae Shogun.
Shortly after the fraud scheme came to light, Ms Pasist and her relatives were arrested as they were about to leave the country through Ranong province which borders Myanmar.
Sin Sae Shogun is charged with fraudulent borrowing and operating an illegal business. photos by Patipat Janthong
Ms Pasist claimed her company sold only food supplements to members for 9,730 each while victims were persuaded by other people, not her, to buy the package tour.
She also said she earlier spent 20 million baht of her own money to buy tickets to Japan for many other members.
In July, Ms Pasist and nine other suspects went before the Criminal Court to deny charges of committing public fraud and other charges relating to membership of their online food supplement company.
Police said the victims were conned into buying memberships of the food supply company between January and April in exchange for promised free trips to South Korea, Hong Kong and Japan.
They face other charges relating to their online business WealthEver, which attracted people to buy food supplement memberships worth 9,000-20,000 baht.
Prosecutors also charged Ms Pasist and the other suspects with operating an illegal business, computer crime, distributing food supplements with false labels, and customs-related offences of buying or accepting falsely declared imported goods.
According to officials, Ms Pasist has changed her name more than 10 times. She has been embroiled in several fraud cases since 2012 although she managed to reach a compromise with her victims in some cases, resulting in the revocation of her arrest warrants.
In the Japan tour scheme, there are 757 victims, of whom 175 were treated as witnesses by police. Total damages were estimated at 51 million baht.
