Editor arrested over alleged pyramid scheme
Citizen Police newspaper owner and managing editor, Sap-anan Charoenwattana-udom, was arrested on Wednesday over an alleged pyramid scheme that caused Bt150 million-worth damages to some 3,000 people.
DSI Bureau of Off-System Finance Crime Piyasiri Wattanawarangkoon led officers to apprehend Sap-anan over an accusation that the newspaper invited pubic members to join savings projects that would pay a member’s designated beneficiaries after the member’s death.
The DSI’s probe deemed the projects to be within a frame of wrongdoing under the Decree on Obtaining Loans Amounting to Public Cheating and Fraud 1984 and violating the Funeral Assistance Act.
The DSI probe also found that Sap-anan might have links to a bogus charity foundation that offered donors police-like uniforms which displayed an insignia of a high ranking officer.
The allegedly bogus foundation was cited in a separate case handled by both police and DSI, concerning a gang which lured Thai businesspeople to invest in fake mega-projects in Myanmar’s Mon State.
