Top Ufun executive turns in to the police

BANGKOK: -- Top executive and chairman of the advisory board of UFun Store Thailand Maj Gen Athiwat Soonparn, 67, and his wife were apprehended by police after they returned to Bangkok from Qatar this morning.

The couple arrived at Suvarnabhumim airport aboard a Qatar Airway’s Flight QR 830 from Doha.

Both the retired army general and his wife Jiraphimon, 60, earlier offered to turn themselves in to the police to face charges saying they had no intention to flee abroad.

He is the 81st suspect wanted in connection with the Ufun Store fraud scam.

Waiting at the airport to receive the couple was Pol Lt Gen Suwira Songmetta, the assistant commissioner of the Royal Thai Police.

Maj Gen Athiwat said he did not flee the country after he was among the wanted suspects in the Ufun scandal.

He said he left the country to attend his son’s graduation ceremony.

He said he and his wife turned themselves in to police as they were not guilty as charged and they wanted to prove their innocence.

He said he was also an investor in Ufun adding “if I know eating this meal will be painful, I will never have eaten it.”

But Pol Lt Gen Suwira said the police have substantial evidence to show he was a top executive with full authority in signing documents of Ufun Store.

He represented the company to sign agreement with three finance companies in doing business to accredit the company’s image among investors.

The police have charged them with money laundering, fraud and involvement in an international crime network.

Investigation by the Anti Money Laundering Office also revealed that he and his wife have opened several bank accounts for money transactions amounted to a total of 13.55 million baht.

His wife also worked as a consultant of Ufun band was oaidba monthly salary of 55,000 baht.

To date, police investigators believed Ufun may have cheated up to 120,000 members in Thailand out of an estimated 38 billion baht.

Investigators from the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) have traced 35 financial transactions from Ufun networks to 10 countries between January 2014 and April 28, 2015.

The scam had been plotted in Malaysia and spread to Australia, Britain, China, France, Germany, Guinea, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand and the United States

Source: http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/top-ufun-executive-turns-in-to-the-police

-- Thai PBS 2015-08-29

Can you not refer to UFUN as a store. Stores sell things but UFUN never sold a thing ever apart from the BS tokens that were not real and investors were simply given a webpage to view their investment constantly increasing on a web page. They were not able to draw their money out. The UFUN brochure was full of lies. They claimed to give members a 30% discount from Major shops like Channel and Hermes. Absolute nonsense as they had never made any such arrangements with these shops. If this liar and his liar wife claim they are not guilty then they can return the 1.7 million baht that my naive Brother In Law invested. The police need to take a good look at his so called friend who got him involved and helped him get a massive loan against his home. His friend walked away with 200,000 THB as a fee for helping. What a mess!

...why flatter them with such a title....they are criminals...not executives.....