Crime
43 Year-Old Danish-Man Arrested for 20 Million Baht Hotel Booking Scam
Tourist Police Bureau deputy commissioner Pol Maj Gen Surachet Hakpal announced on Wednesday the arrest of Jacob Holm Schultz, 43
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Thailand’s Tourist Police have announced the arrest of a Danish national accused of cheating more than 400 foreign tourists, mostly westerners, out of an estimated 40 million baht by operating a bogus website, accepting advance hotel room bookings.
Pol Maj-Gen Surachet Hakparn, deputy commissioner of Tourist Police Bureau, told Thai PBS that the suspect, 43-year old Jacob Holm Schultz, allegedly operated the hotel booking scam with four Thai accomplices, including a 36-year old woman, whose bank account was used to receive money transfers from customers who made hotel bookings through a fake booking website, www.vacasianhotel.com which has been closed.
He said that tourist police started the investigation some time ago after they had received complaints from many western tourists that they made advance hotel bookings and advance payments through the website, but when they checked into the hotels they booked, they were told there were no advance bookings under their names.
Pol Maj-Gen Surachet said more than 20 million baht have been wired into the account of an unnamed woman for the past two years and, after that, the money were withdrawn and given to the Danish man.
Schultz was charged with public fraud and will be blacklisted from Thailand, he added
Sources: Thai PBS, The Nation
