Police Arrest Woman in Gold-Plated Jewelry Fraud Across Bangkok
Police arrested a woman in Bangkok for allegedly pawning gold‑plated jewelry at more than 20 shops across Bangkok and the eastern provinces, causing losses of about 5.5 million baht. The suspect, identified as Sunnisa ‘E’ from Chanthaburi, claimed she was hired by a foreign man to pawn the items, but investigators remain doubtful of her statement. She is being held on fraud charges and will be detained at Pattaya Provincial Court.
During interrogation, the suspect claimed she had been hired by a foreign black man named ‘Joe’, whom she had only met in July. He asked her to pawn a 5‑baht gold bracelet at jewelry shops, promising her 10,000 baht each time, and said she did not know whether the bracelet was fake or gold‑plated, insisting she was not the real owner. She said she mostly pawned the items at shops in Bangkok, its vicinity, Samut Prakan, Chachoengsao and Chonburi.
After more than two hours of questioning, police remained unconvinced by her account, which kept shifting and was not helpful to the case, but they said they would continue to investigate and expand the probe to any accomplices.
A check of her criminal record showed she had faced ten cases involving drugs and the Computer Crime Act. Police said they would detain her at Pattaya Provincial Court the following day.
Later, reporters visited the jewelry shop on Municipal Huai Yai Road, Moo 1, Huai Yai Sub‑district, Bang Lamung District, Chonburi Province, which had been victimized by the suspect. They spoke with Chalada, 39, the shop owner, who showed CCTV footage from the day of the incident and the gold‑plated bracelet the suspect had presented for pawning.
To the naked eye the bracelet looked genuine, but when a file or grinding tool was used to scrape a small part of the surface, the interior was revealed to be an ordinary iron chain. The owner said the suspect had clearly invested heavily and must be a professional goldsmith, having wrapped real gold around an iron chain to achieve a weight of five baht.
She added that on the day of the incident her son was alone in the shop. According to the CCTV, the suspect arrived in a van, parked in front of the shop, entered and asked to pawn the bracelet, then offered her left hand to remove the bracelet from her wrist. Because the bracelet was coated with real gold, it was difficult to detect without a grinder or magnifying lens. The suspect also said she would like to buy more gold, so the son agreed to pawn the bracelet for 275,000 baht. When they returned to the shop and examined the bracelet with a grinder, they discovered it was gold‑plated, or “gold stuffed”, and filed a report with Huai Yai Police.
Following the incident, the shop owner said she had received information from a group of jewelry‑shop entrepreneurs in Bangkok, Pathum Thani, Samut Prakan, Chachoengsao and Chonburi—more than 20 stores—that had been victimized in the same way, because the suspect used her real name when pawning the five‑baht gold items, and the total loss amounted to around 5.5 million baht.
