Police raid and shut down a pyramid scheme

[Thaivisa News]

Bangkok: – Police yesterday conducted a raid at the office of UFun Store located on Ramintra 61 Road and shut down the company’s pyramid scheme.

Reacting to complaints filed at Damrong Tham Centre, police have sought and received the court-approved warrants of arrest for eight executives, comprising three Malaysian nationals and five Thais.

The money laundering authorities have impounded 250 million baht as suspected ill-gotten gains from defrauding the public involving 14,700 victims.

Three Malaysian suspects are Tay Kim Leng, 41, Lee Kuan Ming, 38 and Won Sing Hlia, 42.

The five Thai suspects are Arthit Pankaew, 47, Apichanat Saenkla, 40, Ratthawit Thitiarunwat, 34, Chaithorn Thonglolert, 41 and Rithidet Warong, 39.

During the raid, Rithidet, who holds 51 equity stakes in the company, was present. Police took him into custody pending the remand hearing.

National police assistant commissioner general Lt General Suwira Songmetta said the company was registered for direct sale.

But in practice, the company was the front for the scam because there was no genuine business transaction, Suwira said.

Online customers fell prey to the pyramid scheme by agreeing to pay the fee of 17,000 per membership. Then the members of the scheme would make illusory transaction with one another and their recruited newcomers based on an online currency called utoken.

After uncovering evidence of defrauding the public, the authorities revoked the company’s registration on Wednesday ahead of yesterday’s raid.

Following the raid, police seized financial records and a large number of documents as evidence.

In his statement, Rithidet denied the fraud charges, saying his company acted as an online market place for customers to buy and sell their products directly to one another.

The offence for defrauding the public is penalised by imprisonment from five to 10 years and a fine between 500,000 baht to one million baht.

[Rhys]

They still do that, even here?

[gk10002000]

the beauty of scams and "companies" such as this is that you rarely know or can verify that there is an actual customer on the other end of your transaction. Companies create fake accounts, false people etc. It really is kind of clever and it can take quite a while for the fraud to be uncovered, realized, reported etc. Thankfully the frauds stay open too long and get caught before they shutdown and leave.