Romance scams have become a significant concern in Thailand over the past 5 years. While these scams happen the world over, unsuspecting Thai women have become a lucrative target through online platforms.
These scams involve perpetrators posing as affluent foreigners seeking romantic relationships, using fraudulent profiles to deceive and exploit victims emotionally and financially.
In this article, I'll break down how these scams operate, the role of Thai nationals in laundering money, and how to prevent yourself and others you care about from falling victim.
How Do Romance Scams Work in Thailand?
Romance scams in Thailand are synonymous with Nigerian crime networks, who create fake online identities, often using stolen or fabricated images of attractive Western men to lure their victims.
A typical profile might depict a good-looking pilot, a man in the armed forces, or a wealthy international businessman.
These fake profiles are then used to approach unsuspecting Thai women, usually on Facebook and Instagram, engaging in what seems like a genuine, romantic interest.
The scammers invest time in building trust with their victims, often over weeks or even months, and create an emotional connection through constant communication via social media platforms. And then, when they have the victim's contact details, via messaging apps for a more personal connection.
As the relationship deepens and trust is secured, the scammer will invent a crisis — such as a medical emergency or financial issue — that requires immediate financial help.
The victim is convinced to send money, which may begin as a small request but will escalate to larger values over time. The scammer may employ various strategies, including feigned family emergencies, business investments, or even requests for travel expenses.
The scam rarely stops at one or even two requests for money. Once the victim sends money, the scammer will usually request more funds under different pretenses, only disappearing entirely after receiving a substantial sum or arousing suspicion.
The Role of Thai Nationals and “Horse Accounts
In many cases, these scams are not just operated by foreign nationals but involve local Thai individuals who assist in moving the illicit funds.
These accomplices help by opening bank accounts in Thailand using fake, stolen, or hired Thai identification cards. These accounts are known as “horse accounts,” which are used to launder money by funneling it through various transactions.
These accounts act as intermediaries, receiving funds from victims and transferring them to the scammers, making it harder for authorities to trace the illicit financial activities.
In a recent case in Bangkok, a Nigerian man and 13 Thais were arrested for siphoning about 800 million Baht out of Thailand over a span of three years. During the raid, authorities seized 20 bank account books, a mutual fund book, 21 mobile phones, two computers, and five sets of overseas money transfers (source).
This bust demonstrates the extent of local cooperation in facilitating these scams, with Thai nationals often assisting to obscure the identities of the Nigerian ringleaders and making it harder for authorities to track the funds.
Signs to Watch Out For
While these scams are run by a sophisticated network of criminals, there are clear signs that can help you avoid falling victim:
1. Rapid Expressions of Affection
If someone you’ve recently met online professes love or deep emotional attachment very quickly, be wary. Scammers often move fast to create a sense of urgency and emotional dependency.
2. Money Requests
The most significant red flag is when an online acquaintance starts asking for money. These requests often come under the guise of emergencies like medical needs, accidents, or financial problems. A legitimate person would not ask for money so soon in a relationship, especially if they have never met in person.
3. Reluctance to Meet in Person
Scammers will frequently make excuses to avoid face-to-face meetings or video calls. If the person is constantly avoiding these interactions, it could be a sign that they are not who they say they are.
4. Inconsistent or Stolen Photos
Scammers often use images that do not belong to them. To check if the images on a person's profile are fake, you can perform a reverse image search (using tools like Google Images) to see if the pictures appear elsewhere on the internet, which can help uncover fraudulent activity.
5. Pressure to Send Money Quickly
Scammers often try to create a sense of urgency, claiming they need money immediately for travel, medical treatment, or other reasons. They may even send fake documents to reinforce their story.
What to Do If You’re Targeted
While Nigerian scammers in Thailand primarily target Thai women, there is growing evidence that these criminals also exploit their operations to target foreign women residing outside of Thailand. Men may also be targeted by scammers posing as women.
Operating from within Thailand, they exploit the anonymity and technological reach afforded by the internet, making it easy to lure victims across borders.
If you suspect that you are being targeted by a romance scam, it’s essential to take action quickly:
- Stop all communication with the scammer immediately.
- Do not send money, no matter how convincing the story may seem.
- Report the incident to local authorities or your country's embassy if you believe you are a victim of fraud.
- If the scam involves a bank account or money transfer, contact your bank or payment provider to alert them about the
- fraudulent transaction.
- Educate yourself and others about romance scams.
Awareness is the first line of defense.
Need a reputable dating site in Thailand? Click here to see the safest ones.
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Ken F says
That being said, however, educating potential victims about these types of scams is unfortunately pretty much an exercise in futility. This is because people who fit a certain psychological profile are always going to fall victim to these types of romance scams (and other scams) no matter how well they are educated on the subject beforehand. In fact on some level they already know what’s going on but they ignore the obvious signs and choose to believe the fantasy instead. They just really need to believe.
There are basically 3 types of people when it comes to potential scam victims. First there are the types I mentioned above who are psychologically predisposed to falling for these types of scams. Next we have the types who are so cynical and jaded that they see scams everywhere all around them even where they do not exist. These people will tell you with 100% certainty that that this or that is a scam even though in many cases it is not. You can also find guys of this type who are convinced that they can always spot a ladyboy but half the time the person they are “sure” is a ladyboy is actually a real woman. Lastly we have people whom, although not worried about scams at all can nevertheless always see them coming from a mile away. And this would be the case even if they had no knowledge of scams or how they work beforehand. These people don’t jump to conclusion like the type twos, they are simply have good common sense instincts and and they listen to this instincts.
Anyway educating type one people does no good, and educating type twos only serves to feed their cynicism. And the last type of course does not really need to know the particulars of how the scams work as they will easily be able to avoid even new and unknown scams.
By the way, you mentioned some “safe and reputable” dating sites that one might use but unfortunately, no matter how reputable they may be run there are still going to be some scammers on them along with a ton of prostitutes. Thaifriendly for example – which is where I met my last two girlfriends – has become completely overrun with freelance prostitutes. In fact I would say at this point that it’s much better site for finding prostitutes than it is for finding dates. Anyway, since 95% of these freelancers do not mention this fact in their profile – and since virtually none of the normal women write anything in their profiles – you have to contact them to find out why they are actually there. And while most of them are nice about it some of these freelancer have this attitude like they are the ones who are supposed to be there and that a guy is a fool for looking for a normal women there. In other words they now think of it like a Pattaya Nightclub in which everyone is supposed to know that almost all the women there are freelancers.
Back to scammers though, anyone using Tinder should be aware that it is so overrun with scammers now that it is not even worth the effort. I was on tinder in the USA for about 4 months and in that time I made over 200 matches, 95% of which were obvious scammers. Fortunately they are very easy to quickly weed out though as they all use a very similar backstory. All of them claimed to be from either Europe or Asia but now living in the USA (within the past 5 years or so). The odds on even coming across two real people in a row from Europe or Asia but who are recently living in the USA is astronomical, so 100 or more in row – well, you get the picture. And when you combine this with the fact that they all talk (write) and behave in a very similar fashion you can be 99.9 percent sure at this point that it’s a scammer. And lets face it, why would you want to waste anymore of your time on a one-in-a-thousand chance that the person is real? Of course if you chat with them long enough they will eventually bait the hook by bringing up how they make money investing in crypto and at this point you can be 100% sure that you are dealing with a financial scammer. I have only let it get this far a few times and I never stuck around long enough for them to ask for money but you can be sure that all of them were financial scammers running the exact same scam. In the old days when you were in doubt you could just ask the person to make a video call and if they kept making excuses why they could not do it you would just dump them and move on. But sometimes these days they will actually call. In fact, I was able to make video calls to seven of these scammers confirming that they were actually the same women in the profile photos (3 polish, 2 Chinese, and two from other European countries). Anyway the calls will always follow the same pattern. They will always be seated at what looks like a home office desk and will be talking through a laptop rather than a phone. There will also be no windows nearby so that you cannot see if its daytime or nighttime where they are so as to not give away the fact that they are not really in the USA. And lastly they will keep the calls very short, usually under two minutes. Its an identical pattern in every case. By the way, most of the the ten percent of my tinder matches who were not scammers were girls who were looking for a sugar daddy. I guess this is just the times we are living in.
Feb 01, 2025 at 12:24 pm