Bunsie Sakipon fronts court for defrauding gym goers

A silver-tongued personal trainer concocted stories to obtain $110k from gym goers throughout Melbourne, including lying that his sister died of cancer

Personal trainer Bunsie Sakipon has gone to jail for conning 11 gym goers throughout Melbourne into giving him more than $110,000.

A dodgy personal trainer who tricked 11 gym goers into giving him more than $110,000 on the pretext of either providing them personal training or asking for loans has been jailed.

Among those that Bunsie Sakipon conned was a gym goer whose daughter was receiving cancer treatment who loaned him money after he lied that his sister died of cancer.

The 55-year-old pleaded guilty in the County Court on August 9 and was sentenced to seven years’ and seven months’ jail

He was convicted on seven charges of obtaining financial advantage by deception and four of obtaining property by deception.

Judge Frances Dalziel said with convictions for similar offending dating back to 2011, Sakipon had no real appreciation or regret for the harm he caused to people over the years.

The judge said he has a history of manufacturing stories and documents to repeatedly prey on people who have come to know him.

“All charges involved preying on people who’ve come to know you and it’s strange that they continued to give you money despite you having no intention of paying them back,” she said.

Personal trainer Bunsie Sakipon convinced a Melbourne gym goer into giving him $4500 towards betting for a boxing match he was fighting in Japan.

Sakipon was a self-employed personal trainer who worked out of gyms across Victoria under the name Tyson Kosakul when he duped his victims.

Lyndell Goldspink and her partner Krygger engaged him as their personal trainer and in June 2017, Sakipon told them he was fighting in a boxing match in Japan and a bet of $2000 would net the couple between $14,000 and $20,000.

Mr Krygger paid him $2000 but a day later, Sakipon told him his opponent had withdrawn from the fight after pulling a hamstring.

Mr Krygger paid him a further $2500 after Sakipon said all further bets would pay out as a win and that he would go to Japan to sign the contract that he had won.

A few weeks later, Sakipon became aware that Ms Goldspink’s daughter was receiving cancer treatment and claimed that his sister had died of cancer.

Based on that lie, she gave Sakipon $6340 as loan but he didn’t pay any of the amounts back.

The highest sum he obtained was $47,400 from 19-year-old Brunswick Secondary College student Haouyin Tang on the pretext of providing personal training in late 2016.

Sakipon made excuses such as having issues with his ex-partner in a Mexican court whenever Mr Tang asked him for repayment.

Judge Dalziel said Sakipon repaid just $5800 and blamed the filing of charges in court from preventing him from paying back his victims in full.

She said Sakipon was first convicted in 2001 and sentenced to four years’ imprisonment on charges of blackmail, obtaining property by deception and theft.

Sakipon will have to serve six years before he’ll be eligible for parole.