Thai call girl 'laundered £1million stolen by Barclays Bank worker through Oriental Angels escort agency'

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Auchareeya Pruankaewmanee is accused of laundering £1m through her bank account, stolen by Barclays Bank fraudster John Skermer

A Thai call girl laundered £1million stolen from a worker at Barclays Bank after they met through an escort agency, a court heard.  

Auchareeya Pruankaewmanee, 43, is accused of accepting £996,999 from convicted fraudster John Skermer, of Widnes, Cheshire, who set up ‘ghost bank accounts’ to steal from his employer. 

Skermer has previously confessed to being responsible for a £2.1m fraud after writing computer programmes to exploit inadequacies in Barclays’ system, the Old Bailey heard.

Pruankaewmanee is accused of meeting Skermer through Oriental Angels, an escort agency she worked for in London, and transferring the stolen cash to different accounts. 

It is claimed she received almost £1million from Skermer and transferred £951,728 to her TSB bank account. She then allegedly returned £565,988 to Skermer, who was responsible for 30 million retail bank accounts. 

John Evison, prosecuting, said: ‘The prosecution say that Ms Pruankaewmanee was working as an escort for an agency called Oriental Angels when she met Mr Skermer and that is how she was introduced to him.

‘She was not the only escort he had seen because as you will hear there were many escorts who received the bank’s money.

‘Mr Skermer also spent money entertaining his friends royally on golfing weekends, buying his wife a present - he was married with children - and helping friends with, not his money, but the bank’s money.’

Pruankaewmanee regularly travelled from her home in Canary Wharf to Cheshire to see Skermer, the court heard.

‘She became a money launderer because he wanted to get the money from Barclays Bank into another account and Ms Pruankaewmanee was the person who, the Crown say, facilitated that,’ the prosecutor added.

Pruankaewmanee was arrested last June when her name came to light during the course of the investigation.

She admits receiving the money and making the transfers, but claims she believed Skermer was a rich businessman with several legitimate businesses in the UK and abroad.

Mr Evison said: ‘She accepts she met him as an escort and he was very generous. She says their relationship developed and she believed she was in a loving relationship with a wealthy man and she says she fell in love with him.’

Pruankaewmanee (left) accepts she met convicted fraudster John Skermer (right) when working as an escort for Oriental Angels but claims she never knew or suspected the £1million he gave her was criminal property 

Pruankaewmanee claims she was ‘naive and vulnerable’, but never knew or suspected the money was criminal property.

‘The Crown say her account is not a credible one. She knew, the Crown say, this money was the proceeds of criminal activity or if she didn’t initially have that knowledge she must have suspected that was the case,’ Mr Evison added.

Skermer, from Widnes, Cheshire, admitted carrying the £2.1million fraud last March, the Old Bailey heard.

The software manager, now 46, spent the money on escorts, ‘royally’ entertaining his friends on golfing weekends and gifts for his wife, jurors were told.

Pruankaewmanee denies acquiring criminal property, entering into a money laundering relationship and transferring criminal property between 22 December 2011 and 19 February 2013.

The trial continues.  

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