Lecturer accused of selling bogus summer camp trips

The deputy director of Bodindecha (Sing Singhaseni) 2 School yesterday filed a complaint with the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), accusing a former lecturer at a well-known private university of fraud for allegedly offering a bogus summer camp programme in the UK.

Kittiphob Pawanathkullathorn, the school’s deputy director, asked the CSD to take legal action against Asama Dumrongpol, 33, a former head of the English department at the university, for fraud.

Mr Kittiphob told police the school planned to send students to a summer camp abroad and looked for companies that arranged programmes in foreign countries. A company run by Ms Asama was among them.

Ms Asama claimed she had arranged for Thai students to go to camps in the UK several times, Mr Kittiphob said, adding that she offered lower prices than other companies. School executives and parents agreed to use Ms Asama’s services to plan the trip from Oct 13 to Oct 27.

A total of 30 students signed up for the programme, for the price of 90,000 baht per student. In total, 2.7 million baht was paid to Ms Asama, Mr Kittiphob said.

However, when the trip drew near, Mr Kittiphob said he telephoned Ms Asama, but she asked to postpone, saying accommodation in the UK was still full.

He tried to contact her several times before he lost contact on Oct 31, he said.

He then tried to look for her at the university where she worked, only to be told she was on sick leave and had left with all of her personal belongings.

He also discovered that her company had been closed.

Mr Kittiphob said he was concerned that Ms Asama might have used the documents of students who joined the programme, such as photocopies of ID cards, and household registrations to undertake financial transactions which could later cause damage to the students.