Thailand Investigations Blog
Do You Want to Know the Truth?

This is the continuation of last week’s post. This really happened in real life, but all the names have been changed.

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In short, Jenny had been running another scam with the intent of cheating people and running off with their money as a contingency plan so she could afford to leave her job. The scam she pulled off in the past was exactly the same as the one she pulled off with Arnold and everyone else – they knew her for a couple of years, had common friends, and it was that friendship that she exploited

to gain everyone’s trust and have them invest in her scheme. It also helped that she was showing the supposed “gains” from her business endeavors – a new luxury car, a condominium unit – things Arnold and Je

nny’s other friends took to be signs that her business was

the real deal.

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And when while all of this was happening, they couldn’t seem to find a concrete answer from her on when they could have their money back. Many had only managed to recoup about 20-50% of their investment at most, and they wanted their money back. Jenny had a lot of reasons for excusing meetings among the business partners – she was sick and was confined in a hospital (but she refused to say which), that she was investigating her contact at the dock to help get the money back. All these excuses did not hold any water for long, especially when the others were alerted to the findings of my agency.

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It was immediately decided to inform all the proper authorities that were involved to enable the speedy capture of Jenny and to prevent her from fleeing Thailand. I cannot go into the details of the investigation done by the official people, but suffice to say that at least Jenny is in the hands of local authorities and her fate is still being decided as we speak.

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Arnold has no idea when he’ll get his money back, or if he’ll even get back a single cent at all. Jenny has promised him and other victims that she would return at least their total investment with her, and still claims that her contact at the docks was the one who was to blame for the whole mess.

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If only somebody had bothered to check on the authenticity of her claim before agreeing to invest in her business. While this case is what I’d call a bit in the extreme, as it is unusual for someone to invest years into a friendship and just coldly steal everything away. Nevertheless, in whatever business endeavor your plan to invest money in, it is always prudent to have it looked into first before plunging in. Many get blindsided by the promises of large profits and simply do not bother to have the legitimacy of a business checked out before investing their hard-earned money. It’s a shame. Remember that business is business and professionalism and all the other aspects of running and being part of that business need to be largely separate from any personal relationship.

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