In Indonesia and extradited to her homeland. Thailand’s singing influencer-scammer Nutty is finally apprehended, after more than two years on the run

Natthamon Khongchak, back when she was a popular influencer

In Thailand, it is widely said that she knows the now-jailed compatriot Siriwipa Pansuk. And like the latter, Natthamon Khongchak, popularly known as Nutty, escaped by land to Malaysia after her scams came to light and the police began investigating her and then issued warrants for her arrest. She, too, was finally caught (and extradited), but unlike Ms Pansuk, in Indonesia. The self-touted “Forex trader” who allegedly defrauded more than six thousand of her followers in her homeland of a staggering two billion baht (or about S$77 million then), was apprehended in the province of Riau on the central eastern coast of Sumatra that faces the Strait of Malacca. According to Thai media reports, Ms Khongchak, her mother, and a secretary had fled to Kuala Lumpur in August 2022. When they eventually arrived in Indonesia is not clear, but they reportedly came by boat, and was arrested on 18 October in the coastal city of Dumai, 188 kilometres from the provincial capital Pekanbaru.

The circumstances that led to Nutty’s arrest was somewhat nuts. It is not known how long she and her mother had stayed undiscovered in Riau or if they assimilated the local culture. It was not even certain if Ms Khongchak spoke the bahasa with even a vestige of proficiency (although she supposedly speaks good Malay, having spent her teens in Perlis), but the truth emerged when she daringly went to apply for an Indonesian passport, which would have allow her to travel abroad. The processing officers who spoke to her detected an unmistakable Thai accent in her responses. Certain that she was not Indonesian, they cleverly asked her to sing the national anthem, Indonesia Raya, and even recite the pancasila, the state philosophy. Unsurprisingly, she was unable to. She was immediately retained by the Riau police. So, too, her mother/fellow fugitive, Thaniya Kongsuphak (also Saranaya Khongchak). The whereabouts of the secretary Nichapat Rattananukrom is still unknown.

Ms Khongchak and her mother Thaniya escorted by the Thai police upon their arrival in Bangkok. Photo: ViralPress

Mother and daughter in happier times

Back in Thailand, where, after two years, much of the case was forgotten, jokes began shared online of how much a delicious irony it was that Ms Khongchak, who aspired to be a pop star and had once shared videos of herself attempting to sing K-pop, mimicking Blackpink and others, and was said to have debuted as an artist in South Korea under the Dream Cinema label, was asked to sing the Indonesian national anthem and was unable to or even mimic singing it. Who knows—Netizens wondered—if she had not picked scamming and chose singing instead, she could have been Thailand’s next Lisa, although a name change would probably be required. The interest of the Thai media in her case was piqued again by the failed singing of a national anthem.

Natthamon Khongchak (นัทธมณ คงจักร์), now 31, started as a YouTuber with 800,000 followers. In her TokTok-ish videos, she mostly sang and danced sexily, revealing no particular flair that would have a talent scout rush over to sign her up. Yet, she did record an EP, 2014’s Korean-language, dance-oriented The Power of Nutty. But the Chiang Mai-born’s intense desire to be a pop singer somehow waned, possibly because her songs barely made a dent in the world of K-pop. Ms Khongchak’s early attempt at a singing career was also possibly to escape a soap-opera-worthy childhood (recounted here), in which she claimed, while roughing it out in Southern Thailand and northern Malaysia, she married, at age 13, to a 48-year-old polygamous Malaysian man. In what seemed to be a whim, she transitioned to a “web idol” in the mid-2010s, and soon sold stuff to tap her growing viewership.

Ms Khongchak’s early popularity could be less to do with her singing than her sexy poses

Somehow, she encountered forex trading and found pleasure and profit in it. So successful she was that she once shared on her YouTube channel Nutty’s Diary, a clip of a television program that featured her. It showed Ms Khongchak being interviewed in her car. She then unzipped a bag, from which she removed a Manila envelope, and took out still-bound wads of notes, saying that the cash is for buying her mother, whom she called mae Nut (Nut’s mother), a surprise gift: one three-million-baht car. Money, loads of it, had come to define her. In 2022, after establishing herself as a forex trader and showing off the wealth to prove her abilities, she launched a forex investment scheme that netted her even more money, allowing her to flaunt designer clothes and sojourns in fancy hotels and resorts. She promised her investors unusually (and unbelievably) high returns without explaining how that could possibly come to be: 25 per cent in three months, 30 per cent in six, and 35 per cent in a year, all to be disbursed monthly. For the most part, she did not pay the money out.

According to the Bangkok Post, Natthamon Khongchak was wanted on 13 arrest warrants issued by the Thai police’s Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau. Her mother Thaniya Khongchak on two warrants of the same charges. It is not known to what extent mae Nut was involved. The case is now under the probe of Thailand’s Department of Special Investigation (DSI). At the airport in Bangkok eight days ago, mother and daughter received a reception that was worthy of an indicted drug kingpin. The DSI and police had reportedly already seized the pair’s assets, amounting to 16 million baht. Before being taken away in a DSI vehicle to an unknown lockup, Ms Khongchak was allowed to speak to the press. She expressed her wish to apologise to “all” her victims. She did not comment on the scams that had affected that many individuals. For those ruthlessly duped by her, only two consequences matter: their getting the money back and her ample time in jail—the full 20 years for fraud.

Photos (accept as indicated): nutty.suchataa/Instagram