BANGKOK — A Swedish man is heartbroken after being tricked into marriage by a Thai woman, losing nearly 360,000 baht. The woman was already married, and her soldier husband even came to threaten him at the police station. This led him to file a complaint through the media in Bangkok.
On September 5, Ahmet, a 42-year-old Swedish national, came to file a complaint with Ekkaphop Luangprasert, an advisor to the Minister of Interior and the founder of the Facebook page ‘Sai Mai Tong Rod’ (Sai Mai Must Survive), at the page’s office in Bangkok. He hoped that by making his story public, he would receive help and protection.
Ahmet explained that he met the Thai woman through a dating app on June 17 this year. By July, the woman had deceived him into agreeing to marry her, asking him to transfer 359,000 baht for wedding expenses for an August ceremony at her home in Wat Ko Sub-district, Si Samrong District, Sukhothai Province. He transferred the money out of love.
When he arrived in Sukhothai on August 25, the Thai woman took him to a temporary room, claiming it belonged to her relative. After that, he couldn’t contact her for two days. On August 28, Ahmet began to realize he had been tricked and left the resort to seek help from Thai officials.
He first encountered a rescue worker who was responding to floods and told him his story. The rescue worker helped by contacting the woman, leading to a discussion and an agreement to get married the next day, August 29, at 9:00 am.
However, when the time came, the woman informed Ahmet that the village headman was unavailable, so they changed plans from a wedding to a traditional wrist-tying ceremony on August 30, with the rescue worker as a witness.
Later, the woman asked the rescue worker to delete a post showing her tying wrists with the foreigner. Shortly after, a man called the rescue worker, claiming to be the bride’s husband and that they weren’t divorced, threatening to sue Ahmet.
The rescue worker, therefore, informed Ahmet, who was shocked as he knew nothing about this. He asked the rescuer to take him to Si Samrong Police Station to file a complaint against the woman for fraud, but the police refused to accept the complaint.
While at the police station, the woman’s husband, a soldier from Tak Province, came to confront Ahmet, pushing him and using offensive language in English. This frightened Ahmet, who feared for his safety and wanted his money back. He decided to seek help from the “Sai Mai Tong Rod” page.
Ekkaphop said that after this, the Sai Mai Tong Rod team will take Ahmet back to Si Samrong Police Station to file a complaint again.
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