Thai woman accidentally makes $70,200 after scammer tricks her into buying gold

According to Ch7HD News, the woman was first contacted by a scammer posing as an investigator, who claimed her bank account was linked to a money laundering case. Fearing arrest, she transferred more than 410,000 baht (US$12,500) to an account in Hong Kong.

When her bank account was frozen in September, the scammer instructed her to use her remaining savings to buy gold instead. Over several weeks, she spent around 14 million baht ($427,000) on gold bars, just as global gold prices began climbing sharply, Mothership reported.

Sensing something was wrong, she reported the scam to police on Oct. 17. The next day, under police guidance, she followed the scammer's instructions to deliver the gold, hidden inside a milk powder tin, to a meeting point. Officers in plain clothes lay in wait and arrested a Hong Kong national who arrived to collect it.

Police said the man, who entered Thailand on a tourist visa in December 2024, had overstayed his permitted stay and was part of a transnational fraud syndicate that specialized in collecting assets from scam victims.

In a surprising twist, the elderly victim later sold all her gold holdings for 16.7 million baht ($509,400), as gold prices rose about 15% within weeks amid a global metals rally.

After deducting her initial losses, she still walked away with roughly 2.3 million baht ($70,200) in profit. She sold her gold near its peak before prices dropped again.