A heartbroken shop owner was allegedly scammed out of his life savings by a beautiful Thai masseuse with whom he fell in love.

Wittawat Suphasathien, 47, met Lay at a massage parlour in the Soi Wat Pho Man area of Bangkok in early August. She reportedly gave him a regular massage before offering him one of Thailand's infamous happy ending rub-downs for 5,500 THB (125 GBP).

After their initial encounter, Lay was said to have seduced Wittawat by often inviting him out on dates or visiting him at his phone shop. He said she frequently asked to see his phone 'to check if he was cheating on her'.

However, Lay's scheme came to light on September 1, when Wittawat opened his bank account - only to find 1.8 million THB (around 41,000 GBP) missing. He said the transaction records showed that the funds had been wired to Lay's account.

Wittawat filed a report with the police and requested that Lay's account be frozen. He also sought help from Ekapop Luengprasert, an adviser to the interior minister and founder of a local social media complaint page, hoping he could bring the masseuse to justice.

Speaking at a press conference on September 3, Wittawat said: 'Miss Lay often texted me and invited me to visit her at the massage shop or have dinner together. If a day goes by where I don't answer her, she immediately comes to my phone shop and acts jealous.

'At the time, I thought 'she must really like me!' so I agreed to have dinner with her and trusted her. Every time she came to see me, she would act jealous and would check my mobile phone every time.'

He said the eagle-eyed hooker had memorised his bank account number and password by staring at his phone screen whenever he paid her for massages.

On August 16, she reportedly took his phone and made a test transfer of 1,000 THB (23 GBP). When the transaction was approved, she allegedly made several more transfers of 49,999 THB each - just below the threshold requiring face verification.

The alleged scam went unnoticed for several weeks as Lay had reportedly disabled automatic SMS alerts and deleted transaction receipts from Wittawat's phone gallery before she was finally found out.

Wittawat said: 'Now she is trying to call me to convince me not to press charges, but I insist on taking legal action to the end, especially if I don't get my money back.'

Ekapop described Lay as a 'wily vixen' and seasoned con artist.

He said: 'The way she committed the crime seems to be professional, using the weaknesses of the victims to deceive them. She made a huge mistake because she would have been financially comfortable if she had just dated this young tycoon.

'From what I see, the complainant is a very kind-hearted person. After this, I will contact the Huamark Police Station chief to track her down.'


(1 GBP = 44.06 THB)