Depositors rally for KCUC asset seizure to get money back

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Depositors rally for KCUC asset seizure to get money back

By Piyanuch Tamnukasetchai 
The Nation

 

 

A group of depositors affected by the multi-billion baht Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative (KCUC) embezzlement scandal rallied outside the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) head office in Bangkok on Friday, urging the agency not to revoke its confiscation orders of assets seized from the case’s suspects.

 

Led by Thammanoon Attachot, the 50-strong group claimed the KCUC board’s civil lawsuit and subsequent settlement would leave little money to repay the individual depositors, most of whom were elderly persons. Their hope of getting more reimbursement hinged on the DSI still holding the assets, most of which were properties with rising values, they said.

 

The KCUC board previously demanded DSI release the confiscated assets to make way for auctions as per a civil court order. 

 

Head of DSI’s special case division, Pol-Major Woranan Srilam, collected the group’s petition letter to pass on to the DSI chief.

 

Thammanoon said the group wanted the DSI and the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) to retrieve assets back for auctions to repay the damaged parties. 

 

A civil lawsuit filed by the KCUC board would mean the cooperative would get the compensation equivalent to the Bt3.811 billion of siphoned money – when there are also the asset-retrieving expenses and the three-per cent lawyer fee (about Bt114 million) to pay in the civil code procedure, he said. 

 

If the case were treated as a money-laundering offence and the assets were retrieved by the DSI and the AMLO, depositors would get back the assets plus interests without paying lawyer fee, Thammanoon said.

 

He said the depositors weren’t confident in the KCUC board, which had agreed to get Bt321 million compensation from former chairman and case suspect Supachai Srisupa-aksorn in one of the related cases in exchange for dropping the lawsuit.

 

Supachai faces several lawsuits based on various amount of money he allegedly stole in different time periods.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30320758

 

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