ASOS co-founder Quentin Griffiths had been convicted of fraud a months before falling to his death from the balcony of his 17th-floor flat in Pattaya. The 58-year-old retail tycoon died two days before a planned meeting with his ex-wife’s lawyers that could have affected his prison sentence. Police in Thailand are treating the fall as suicide.
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Griffiths was convicted on 21 October last year and sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment. He had appealed the ruling and, under Thai law, was able to remain free while the appeal was pending. Authorities said he had been accused of falsifying documents to remove his ex-wife, Ploy, as a director of a firm used to hold property for a family home in an alleged £500,000 fraud.
He was arrested at Bangkok airport on 15 January last year after arriving on a first-class flight from London. Footage showed him being led to a police car and driven away. Police chief Lt Col Worapoj Lallitjirakul said: “The court convicted him. He was sentenced to one year and six months in prison on October 21.”
Pictures courtesy of The Sun of the moment ASOS co-founder Griffiths was arrested when he landed in Thailand
Griffiths had been due to meet lawyers representing Ploy in February, in an effort to reach a deal that might have kept him out of prison. Two days before that meeting, he fell from the balcony of his Pattaya condominium. Police and medics found him on the ground below and his exact cause of death will not be confirmed until a full post-mortem reported is completed.
Following his death, Ploy, 43, reported to local police that their three children had been abducted. Griffiths had previously won custody after a court battle, but she said she fears they are now being cared for in England by his family, despite her now being their legal guardian. She said: “I have no knowledge of any business problems he may have had. I am deeply concerned for the safety and wellbeing of all three. I do not know where they are, and I have been unable to contact them.”
The Sun reported that Griffiths, a former advertising executive, co-founded ASOS and later stepped down as marketing director after four years. He made £15 million from share sales in 2010 and received another stock windfall in 2013. His family declined to comment.
CCTV image shows Quentin Griffiths arriving back at the luxury apartment block in Pattaya where he lived – in one of the last pictures before his death
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Adapted by ASEAN Now TheSun 1 Mar 2026