ANN/THE STRAITS TIMES – An aspiring K-pop star, wanted in Thailand for fraud, was ultimately exposed and arrested when she failed to sing Indonesia’s national anthem, which led to her unmasking.
Natthamon Khongchak, 31, a YouTube content creator known by her nickname “Nutty”, was arrested in Indonesia on October 18 and extradited with her mother, Thaniya, to Thailand on October 25, according to media reports in Indonesia.
Investigators in Indonesia said she tried to pass herself off as Indonesian in Dumai city in Riau province on Sumatra island.
But immigration agents there noticed her Thai accent and asked her to sing Indonesia’s national anthem, according to a report in the South China Morning Post. When she could not, she and her mother were arrested for illegal entry.
Natthamon, her mother and her secretary, Nichapat Rattanukrom, had been on the run since July 2023. They fled Thailand, headed to Kuala Lumpur, and then boarded a boat that took them to Indonesia. Nichaphat remains at large.
Natthamon, who also uses the aliases Leah and Suchata, was accused of swindling thousands of her online followers out of THB2 billion (SGD78 million) in a foreign exchange trading scam.
FROM YOUTUBE STAR TO ‘SCAMMER’
Natthamon drew more than 800,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, Nutty’s Diary.
She had aspired to be a K-pop celebrity, reaching as far as making a brief debut in South Korea under the label Dream Cinema in 2015.
That same year, she started her own skincare brand but has since sold the factory, according to media reports.
Local reports said she was born into a wealthy family in Chiang Mai that ran karaoke and nightlife businesses. But its fortunes took a turn, and the family filed for bankruptcy.
After living with her mother in Malaysia for some time, she returned to Thailand, where she generated buzz on social media platform Socialcam for her dancing and singing, mostly of popular K-pop songs.
She was also often praised for being a filial daughter who shared a close relationship with her mother, who appeared on her YouTube channel.
Capitalising on her popularity and image, she presented herself in 2022 as an investment guru, promising high returns to more than 6,000 people, many of whom later reported they did not receive any payout at all.
She invited her followers to deposit money in her account, promising returns of 25 per cent for three-month contracts, 30 per cent for six months and 35 per cent for 12 months. She pledged to pay them returns every month.
She boasted owning 14 cars and having 22 nannies.
Deputy director-general of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation Colonel Wissanu Chimtrakul told reporters some THB16 million of Natthamon’s assets have been seized.
