A 27-year-old Chinese woman, believed to have been kidnapped for a ransom of 25 million baht, was found safe in a shopping mall in Bang Na district on Saturday evening.
Local media reports stated that Lu Xinlei was located at HomePro Bangna and subsequently taken to the Phra Khanong police station, where she reunited with her mother and elder sister who had traveled from China following the abduction news.
Reports indicated that Lu Xinlei, employed by a property company in Japan, was deceived by a scam gang posing as Japanese authorities. They falsely claimed she had breached anti-money laundering regulations.
She was ordered to transfer 17 million yen for an “examination,” to travel to Thailand or Singapore, and explicitly told to avoid any form of contact with her family residing in Shanghai.
Lu Xinlei arrived in Thailand on the previous Wednesday, following the deceptive instructions she received.
She was told to swap out her SIM card upon arrival to disrupt any tracking and to frequently switch her accommodations, moving from one hotel to another to avoid being located.
The following day, her parents in China received a call claiming their daughter was abducted, demanding a ransom of 5 million yuan, approximately 25 million baht, for her release. This claim was relayed to the police by a Chinese-language interpreter late that Friday.
Police concluded that Lu and her parents were victims of a scam operation that manipulated them via a chat application, with no actual abduction occurring.
