US court jails Thai woman for bag scam

A Thai woman was sentenced to 30 months in prison by a United States court for running a handbag-related scheme to defraud department stores across the country.

According to the US Department of Justice’s website, Praepitcha Smatsorabudh, 41, living in Arlington, Virginia, was sentenced by the US District Court in Virginia on Dec 21 to 30 months in prison.

Praepitcha was also sentenced to three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay US$403,250.81,or about 14.5 million baht, in forfeiture and the same amount in restitution to her victims.

She pleaded guilty to wire fraud on Aug 3. According to court documents, Praepitcha bought brand-name handbags online and then returned in their place counterfeits, which were smuggled into the country from China.

She then sold the authentic handbags on Instagram for more than $2,000 each, about 72,000 baht. Praepitcha made fraudulent returns at over 60 department store locations in 12 states. In total, her scheme defrauded stores out of more than $400,000.

Authorities were alerted to the scam once some of the stores noticed the bags that were returned were fake.

An investigation found Praepitcha made weekly purchases between 2014 and 2015. She was arrested in June.

Praepitcha’s arms were trembling and tears ran down her face on hearing the court’s ruling. She profusely apologised for her crime, the South China Morning Post reported. She was born and grew up in Thailand, and lives in Virginia on a student visa.