A tour operator was arrested yesterday after leaving dozens of holidaymakers stranded at Suvarnabhumi airport, police said.
Patchthanat Wongwangjan, 31, of Pranom Travel in Nakhon Ratchasima, was detained after 61 of his clients lodged a complaint with police on Friday night accusing him of cheating them out of a total of 1.8 million baht for package tours to Japan.
The complainants, who work for a firm in Nakhon Ratchasima, said Pranom Travel had arranged package tours for the company's workers before.
In their complaint filed with the Suvarnabhumi airport police and tourist police, they said they each paid the tour company 30,000 baht for a five-day package tour to Hokkaido.
The package included plane tickets, accommodation and shuttle bus services from Nakhon Ratchasima to Suvarnabhumi.
When they arrived at the airport on Friday, they were told to check in without the plane tickets. The airline staff however told them only five had tickets and the rest had no reservations.
They said they were unable to contact Mr Patchthanat, and so went to the police.
Mr Patchthanat was arrested hours after the complaint was lodged. He was initially charged with causing damage to tourists and operating as a tour guide without a licence.
If convicted, he would be subject to a maximum fine of 500,000 baht.
Pol Maj Gen Khatcha Thatsat, deputy chief of the Tourism Police Bureau, said the case would be handed over to police in Nakhon Ratchasima's Muang district and investigators would consider if the suspect should be charged with fraud.
He said the suspect denied having an intent to deceive his clients and claimed he had booked the flight seats from the airline, which then refused to issue the tickets.
According to Pol Maj Gen Khatcha, police checked with the airline, which claimed Mr Patchthanat had initially reserved the tickets but had not paid for them.
Tourism fraud drew public attention earlier this year after some 1,000 holidaymakers found themselves stranded at Suvarnabhumi ahead of the Songkran holiday.
Pasist Arinchalapis, also known as Sin Sae Shogun, was arrested and charged with fraud and criminal conspiracy for allegedly deceiving people into paying for a bogus trip to Japan. She pleaded not guilty before the Criminal Court in July.
Ms Pasist's company was associated with a direct sales scheme accused of operating with the intent to defraud people.
An associated company, where Ms Pasist was an executive, was registered as a wholesale distributor of soft drinks with the Commerce Ministry.
While it claimed to sell food supplements, an investigation alleged it lured people into buying shares in the company with fake overseas trips.
