Getty Images; iStock; Natalie Ammari/BI
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Wannapa Suprasert, a 28-year-old from Thailand now based in San Francisco who was scammed out of over $300,000. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I never thought that I'd be a victim of a drawn-out scam. I always thought scams were about making quick money, like someone calling and asking for $2,000 within 10 minutes.
Instead, I went through three months of psychological warfare. The scammers created a new reality for me, making me think that if I didn't comply, I could be jailed or deported. They framed themselves as the good guys who could help me, never rushed me to do anything, sent me fake documents, and even talked to me on the phone for hours at a time.
It didn't register in my brain that the scammers would invest so much time and energy into this. Now I know that they're professionals, and this is what they do.
They said I was a suspect in a money laundering scheme
It was a Friday afternoon in March when I got the call that changed my life.
I was at my data analyst job in San Francisco, and the caller said she was from the Thai embassy in Washington, DC. She asked to speak with Wannapa Suprasert, which spooked me because I generally go by my nickname, Bow.
She told me that someone had smuggled a passport bearing my name into the Bangkok airport. She started interrogating me on whether I had lost or sold my passport. I was shocked.
I told her that I hadn't lost my passport and offered to prove I still had it. She said she'd transfer me to the Thai police to file a report. My call with the "police" dropped a couple of times, and someone posing as an officer asked me to add them on LINE, a messaging application popular in many Asian countries.
This didn't strike me as fishy because I'd just gone back to Thailand in February and communicated with the Thai consulate via LINE about renewing my passport while I was home.
At one point after my call had dropped, I tried to phone the Thai embassy in Washington, DC, but nobody answered.
The "police officer" claimed to be part of the Central Investigation Bureau, a division of the Thai police. He sent me a PDF copy of a police report he said he had filed for me. He also said he discovered my identification number on a list of at least 239 people involved with an international money laundering scheme. I was now a suspect.
I had to send updates four times a day
The fake officer sent me a PDF with the alleged photos, names, and descriptions of five masterminds behind the fictional laundering scheme and interrogated me over video chat about whether I knew any of them. The supposed masterminds included two bank managers, an American police officer, a Thai consulate official, and a Thai exchange student in the US. After I told him I didn't know any of them, he said that they'd investigate and help me clear my name. But because I was a suspect, I needed to send daily updates about my whereabouts and activities to ensure I didn't flee.
I had to send three pictures of myself, my location, and a description of what I was doing four times a day: at 9 a.m., 12 p.m., 5 p.m., and 8 p.m. He told me that if I didn't comply, he would send agents to monitor me. If I tried to escape or missed a daily report, my family could be jailed and their assets frozen, he said. He also said I couldn't tell anyone because it might interfere with the investigation, which also involved the FBI. If I did, I risked jail time and fines.
The scammers played on my fears. I had worked so hard for a better education and life since immigrating to the US 10 years ago, and I was afraid of being deported and losing my status. The scammers also warned of people who were killed by the supposed crime syndicate. Leaving my apartment to go to work or shop for groceries was suddenly frightening. I thought someone was really after me and that at any moment, anything could go wrong.
There were many moments when I was skeptical. In fact, a couple of weeks into the scam, I received a LINE message from the Thai Consulate in LA warning about scammers impersonating the Thai police. But the scammers convinced me that the warning message had been sent by the criminals to keep me from complying with the investigation. Because of the threats, paranoia, stress, and lack of sleep, I found myself believing every word they said.
I sent the scammers $81,000 in a wire transfer
My first wire transfer was on April 3, 11 days after the initial call.
The scammers said I was accused of selling my bank account to the crime syndicate, so in order to clear my name, they needed to investigate the money in my bank account. They claimed to have a contract with Hong Kong police who specialized in investigating money laundering, so I wired $81,000 — pretty much all of my savings — to a Hong Kong bank account. They left me with some money for day-to-day spending and paying rent and said they would eventually return the full amount.
A few days later, the fake police officer told me that my money cleared, but the court would need to examine all of the evidence as well. He asked if I could travel to Thailand to appear in court, but warned that someone had been killed making the same trip to clear their name. He said I could also ask someone else to appear on my behalf.
Thinking I couldn't risk telling my family, I asked the officer if he would represent me in court. He played it very well, saying it was a lot to ask and that he needed a few days to decide. He agreed the next day but said that I needed to send money for collateral to ensure I didn't escape while he was representing me.
Then, I transferred another $150,000
I didn't have any more money since I'd already emptied my life's savings. I lied to my family and asked them for money, telling them that I was applying for a Ph.D. — which had been my dream — and needed to show the school that I had $200,000 in my bank account to help with my chances of being accepted. My family valued education so much that I knew they would send me that amount without many questions. They wired the money — most of it from my aunt's retirement fund — and I wired $150,000 to the "police" in two chunks, first $100,000 and then $50,000.
Someone from Bank of America's fraud department called me after I made the $100,000 transaction. She asked me what the money was for and informed me about "pig butchering" investment scams and romance scams. Neither of those applied to me, so it didn't occur to me that I was being scammed. I lied and said that the money was for my sick cousin in Hong Kong whom I'd never met.
When I tried to wire the additional $50,000 a couple of days later, the bank's fraud department called again, asking more questions about where the $100,000 came from and where it went. I told them that my dad had meant to send it to my cousin but accidentally wired it to me. They told me to show up at the local branch, where I found out that the $50,000 transfer had been canceled. The scammers instructed me to appear agitated and say that my cousin needed the money for brain surgery. The $50,000 transfer was approved, and I walked out of that branch feeling such a sense of accomplishment, because I thought I had saved my family from being jailed.
I just wanted it to be over
About a week later, the scammers introduced new characters.
They said a woman who had been scammed by the "crime syndicate" had died by suicide, and that I was responsible for her death because she had transferred money into a bank account in my name. They told me the woman's son wanted payment.
During one of my video calls with the police officer, I could hear the "son" calling for justice for his mom. He wanted me to pay $120,000 in compensation for her death. The scammers acted like they helped me negotiate the amount down to $60,000, which I got from my family through more lies, and wired it over.
At this point, the "investigation" had been ongoing for nearly a month and a half. I kept thinking: I just want to be done with this. Why is it not over yet? I didn't want to report my whereabouts to them four times a day anymore, and I felt like I was being monitored constantly both in my physical world and in the online world. I started to have suicidal ideation. I wanted to disappear.
But the scammers talked me out of those thoughts, telling me not to let the "criminals" win. Of course, now I realize they wouldn't let me die because they wanted me to keep wiring money to them.
Coming back to reality, my whole world came crashing down
The scammers ultimately told me that the court thought the evidence I provided looked clean, but they needed to make sure I didn't keep any assets on my credit cards. On June 4, I was told to cash-advance them $10,800 from my three different credit cards and wire them all of the income I'd made over the past three months since the "investigation" had begun, totaling $20,000. They told me this was the last thing I had to do, and they would present it in court.
On June 7, the fake officer sent me a text that the court had ruled me innocent and that I wouldn't need to give daily reports of my location and photos anymore.
He also said I needed to go back to Thailand to collect repayment of the money I had sent.
I started looking up flight tickets. A few days later, I sent him a screenshot of a potential flight option and called him multiple times to ask about the details of the security measures in place, because I was fearful about my safety.
None of my phone calls went through, and that was when it hit me: They were gone, and my money was probably gone, too.
On June 11, I went to the FBI office in San Francisco and asked the agents for a reality check. They said they ran my record, and it was clean. An FBI agent told me, "You've been scammed. You should report it online."
I walked back to my office and sat in my chair looking up at the ceiling, trying to figure out if what the FBI agent said was real. Maybe, I thought, it was such a top-secret case that this FBI agent didn't know about it. It was hard to discern the truth.
I went home and told the story to two friends, then called the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) and a few other Thai organizations. They all told me the same thing: I'd been scammed.
That's when my world came crashing down. I remember dropping onto the ground of my friends' apartment as the realization washed over me. It was one of the most painful moments of my life — coming to the realization that I had lost more than $300,000. The money was gone. And not just my money, but also my family's money — pretty much my aunt's entire retirement fund. It was all because of me. The guilt will stay with me for the rest of my life.
My friends and family have helped me through it
My friends helped pick me up off the floor and make a step-by-step plan, including going to the banks to report fraudulent activity, filing a report with the FBI and the San Francisco police, and contacting the Thai embassy.
It took me a few days to call my brother and tell him what was going on. I said, "The money you wired to me is gone, and it's all because of me."
A few days later, my brother and my aunt called me together and asked what help I needed, and offered to fly to me in San Francisco. I'm very lucky that they are supportive. I'm sure that they have a lot of questions that they're not asking me yet, but their main concern right now is my mental health.
I still remember something my brother said to me: "You can lose anything in this world, but you cannot lose yourself. You still have your brain, your legs. I'm glad that nothing bad happened to you. You still have your full potential and capability to continue the work that you do, to be you, and to make an impact on this world. You still have that, and know that that's something no one can take away from you." I hold onto that — focusing on what I have and not on what I lost.
I'm doing better but still sometimes have nightmares
I felt like I lost myself in those three months; it was like I was in a cult. All the lies and threats prevented me from taking the steps I should've taken to protect myself. I feel like I'm the scammer because I scammed my family, in a sense, by lying to them. It broke my heart and I'm disgusted with myself.
Each week is better, but there are nights I still have nightmares, and I wake up in the middle of the night crying. I spiral into negative self-talk. My brain still goes over the conversations I had with the scammers.
The FBI told me they would contact me if they assigned anyone to the case, but I still haven't heard back. I also contacted the Hong Kong police, who informed me that there was no money left in the three bank accounts I wired to.
I take responsibility for what I did, but I also feel that the financial system failed me. If bank employees had asked me for even more details and documents as proof — like the medical records of my "cousin" who needed surgery — I might have hit a dead end.
I was in $10,800 of credit card debt because of the cash advance, so I paid that off first. I'm grateful to friends who lent me money to do so, and now I'm working on paying them back. My plan is to get myself back to zero by the end of the year. Then, I can start rebuilding my life again. I also plan to talk to my aunt about some kind of installment plan for repaying her. I'm still pretty traumatized but I'm doing much better emotionally now.
My biggest piece of advice from going through this is to not let yourself be vulnerable to your own emotions. Take a step back and ask yourself: What am I feeling? Why am I feeling this way? Do I have to do this? If people take a deep breath and don't give in to powerful emotions, they'll be less likely to fall victim to these devastating and life-changing scams.
Bank of America told Business Insider about its approach to scam prevention, saying: "We continuously educate our clients about scams. Bank employees receive regular training, and we have internal processes to help flag unusual transactions."
The company said that these safety measures include asking questions in real time about withdrawals and warning clients about scams. However, the company said that sometimes clients neglect warnings, lie about the purposes of withdrawals, and proceed with the transactions anyway.
In response to Suprasert's case, the bank said it tried to warn her. "We spent considerable time sharing information with the client about scams and she even thanked us during a call for our efforts to warn her," the company said. "Despite our warnings, she decided to send her money."
A representative of the Royal Thai Embassy said that it would not comment on the specific case, but confirmed that its officers have received reports of similar scams. An FBI spokesperson said it does not comment on potential investigations.