Another day, another love scam. Bangkok police have taken three Thai women and two Nigerian men into custody for suspicion of running an online love scam on Thai women looking for foreign husbands.

The gang has allegedly stolen THB50 million via online ploys on the hapless lovelorn women.

Okwutor Peter, 29, and Jeremiah Ndidi, 27 are the two Nigerian men involved in the scheme. They landed in Thailand in 2014 and were in the country on overstayed tourist visas, Provincial Police Region 4 chief Pol. Maj. Gen. Jatupon Parnraksa said yesterday.

Two arrested women, Jaerati Saisin, 30, and Nattacha Thongbai, 30 were the wives of the arrested Nigerian men. The third arrested women was Ketsara Marksiri, 34.

The gang was arrested at a Bangkok condo where police found 20 bank books and ATM receipts noting transactions ranging between THB50,000 to THB200,000. The sum of those transactions was THB50 million. Those bankbooks as well as 15 phones and a laptop were taken as evidence, reported Bangkok Post.

Pol. Maj. Gen. Jatupon noted that the suspects tried to destroy the bank books during the raid.

Police learned about this love scam gang after getting a complaint from the group’s latest victim, a plantation owner in Udon Thani, 45. She was coerced into sending THB500,000 to the gang, who had posed as a Western man that wanted to marry her.

Apparently, the gang used a tactic that these scammers often use: they pretend to be rich white men looking for Thai wives. They approach their victims on Facebook or through chat programs and, after chatting for up to six months, ask the women to marry them.

If the woman says yes, they arrange a first meeting in Thailand and pretend to get detained at the airport for carrying large amounts of cash. They would then ask their “fiance” to send them cash to cover the tax on their cash.

The paperwork from the scammed plantation owner said that the group posed as a white engineer that wanted to marry a Thai woman. The name on his account was “Bush Bush” and used a fake photo.

“Bush Bush” claimed to be stopped at both Phuket and Don Mueang Airports for having too much cash and asked his victim to transfer money to cover his tax each time.

And the woman from Udon Thani is far from their only victim. Apparently, three women this month, all from the Northeast and over 45, went to the police after being taken by a similar scam.

Police investigation shows that Peter and Ndidi maybe have been part of a bigger Nigerian scam operation in which they would keep 70 percent of the money they scammed and the rest went to an organized crime boss.

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