Thai Police Crack Down On Internet Pyramid Scheme

[Jai Dee]

Thai police crack down on internet pyramid scheme

Thai police have issued arrest warrants for three Thai nationals suspected of running an internet pyramid scheme that duped more than 100 investors out of 5 billion baht (151.5 million dollars) last year, media reports said Tuesday.

Police Colonel Piyawat Kingkate, chief of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI), said that so far arrest warrants had only been issued for three Thais suspected of operating a bogus investment fund through two websites - www.colonyinvest.net and www.colonyinvest.com, said the Bangkok Post.

Other arrest warrants may be issued for the a number of foreigners who allegedly ran the websites, said Piyawat.

The internet sites pretended to represent Colony Invest, based in Rochester, New York, promising high returns on investments in real estate, stocks and foreign exchange transactions.

According the DSI's initial investigation, Colony Invest had nothing to do with the internet scam and had no knowledge of the two websites operating in Thailand and other Asian countries.

A Thai doctor, who declined to be named, claimed to have invested 5 million baht (151,515 dollars) in the scam, on which he received several interest payments from a company based in Malaysia's Padang Besar before the websites were shut down in November, last year.

Source: DPA - 22 January 2008

[Scott]

What's the old saying?

If it sounds to good to be true it probably is!

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

Greedy buggers to run it up to 5 billion before getting out. You would think with 5,000,000,000 they would have been harder to find.

[basjke]

Greedy buggers to run it up to 5 billion before getting out. You would think with 5,000,000,000 they would have been harder to find.

I don't read anywhere they found them.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

My mistake, misread it. Sorry.

[BigSnake]

Yes beware folks there are some bad bad people on this net, and everywhere else for that matter.

[Jai Dee]

Net closes on scam operators

Police move in on Colonyinvest fraudsters who cheated Thais

Police in Vietnam and Malaysia are cracking down on people operating the Colonyinvest pyramid scheme and who are possibly the same people that have cheated more than Bt5 billion out of Thai investors, Department of Special Investigation spokesman Piyawat Kingket said yesterday.

He said one of the prime suspects was a Malaysian man who had transferred dividends to Thai investors from a bank based in Kelantan in Malaysia until November, when the two websites operated by scheme operators were shut down.

Similar pyramid schemes to Colonyinvest had stopped paying dividends and closed down their websites after a police crackdown in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Piyawat named Euroempire and E-capital as examples, while a Colonyinvest "alternative site" located at www.colonyinvest-mg.com was still accessible in Thailand as of press time yesterday.

He said among the 50,000 Thai investors, the 1,000 based in the Northeast had suffered the most as many had invested millions of baht with Colonyinvest in each venture.

Some of the suspects in Vietnam have been arrested while Malaysian police are hunting those operating the scam locally.

Karun Romin, an ice vendor in Phang Nga, said he and three relatives had each invested Bt380,000 with Colonyinvest last September and received just one dividend of Bt45,000 from the scheme.

He said a man known as Rangsit Phutjaroen, who had asked him to invest, had since disappeared.

He said around 30 neighbours had lost Bt3 million to Colonyinvest and local police said they could not do anything except receive their complaints.

Deputy provincial governor Pititham Thitimontree said there had already been a large number of locals falling prey to the Rice Seed scheme operated by Easy Network. He had no idea how many victims of Colonyinvest there were now.

Source: The Nation - 23 January 2008