The Royal Thai Navy confirmed this afternoon that no seaman had conned a woman who said she married a naval officer who turned out to be a fraud.
After a nurse said she would go to the police over the lieutenant she thought she had married, navy chief Lt. Gen. Karnakorn Monthatpalin said they had concluded the man was a civilian unaffiliated with the navy in any way.
“It was a deceptive impersonation in the hope of building credibility, to mislead people into becoming victims,” Karnakorn said.
The nurse, identified only as A, said she would go to Bang Khen police tomorrow after discovering her monthlong marriage was a sham. Yesterday she told her story to online activist Ekaphop Leungprasert, saying the man had swindled her and her family of money.
The woman said she met the man, known only as Titan, on an unspecified dating app in March. The man misappropriated a photo of a real air chief marshal for his profile photo.
After some time chatting, they went to register their marriage earlier this month. A, knowing that Titan was a lieutenant, thought he would be able to take care of himself and his family.
However, after marrying him, the 37-year-old man began asking her friends and family for money, even going so far as to use her status as a nurse to convince them.
“When we met, he was wearing his naval officer outfit, and I believed he would be able to take care of me and my family,” she told Ekaphop. “But when we married, it wasn’t anything like that. He used my name to discredit me and began borrowing money from others behind my back.”
Navy chief Karnakorn said Titan’s real name is Narongchai Thanachirakarnsakul.
A recounted one time that Titan borrowed THB1,500 from her mother. He told her that he was in need of money for food and lied that A had locked him out of their house and confiscated his wallet.
The nurse found that Titan had been married three times, contradicting what his dating profile said, leading her to conclude he was a serial romance scammer.
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