A Russian who was the alleged ringleader of a romance scam was arrested at an airport in Thailand.

Gabriel Chilashvili, 31, was detained as he arrived at Suvarnabhumi International Airport serving Bangkok on December 26.

Footage shows the Russian, seen wearing a cap and sunglasses, being frogmarched by cops into the police station.

He was charged with 'jointly committing fraud by impersonation, and 'opening or allowing others to use bank accounts while knowing, or having reason to know, that the accounts would be used in the commission of a technological crime'.

Officers said Gabriel, who had been staying in Chonburi province on a student visa, had allegedly defrauded a Thai businessman of 60,000 baht (1,409 GBP) in 2023.

He was said to have posed as a beautiful woman on Facebook to lure the victim into investing in a fake gold trading platform called 'ATFX', promising high returns for minimal capital.

The businessman, upon receiving his profits, increasingly deposited more money until he was locked out of his funds, prompting him to file a report with the cybercrime police.

Investigations found that the scam involved 10 mule accounts - eight owned by Thai nationals and two belonging to Gabriel, whom police described as the 'ultimate beneficiary'.

Thai nationals were then employed to withdraw the ill-gotten money, which was converted into digital currency to be distributed to the scam gang.

Police said they have secured 10 arrest warrants issued by the Nakhon Sawan Provincial Court.

Seven have been arrested and some two million baht (46,978 GBP) has been frozen in their bank accounts.

Police Colonel Natthapon Rattanamongkolsak, superintendent of Cyber Crime Investigation Division 4, said: 'The suspect used a student visa to reside in Chonburi province and has been deceiving victims in Thailand since 2023.

‘He has a history of travelling in and out of Thailand several times.

‘He denied all charges, but we do not believe him due to the discovery of money laundering through digital currencies and a large number of financial transactions linked to his accounts.'

(1 GBP = 42.57 THB)