DSI focuses on four ‘special cases’ involving financial crimes

DSI chief Pol Colonel Paisit Wongmuang said yesterday the DSI board had approved the special cases to be handled by the agency. 
The first involves an allegedly questionable decision by Kasem Klanying, former chair of the Office of the Welfare Promotion Commission for Teachers and Education Personnel’s Fund, to grant large-scale loans to Billion Innovated Group without collateral. 

The Anti-Money Laundering Office has confiscated assets worth more than Bt800 million in the case on the suspicion that the suspect and his accomplices had engaged in money laundering. 
The second case is related to corruption-plagued deals to sell rice from government stocks between 2011 and 2012. 
The third surrounds allegations that the firm M-Landarch had sold faulty equipment that was supposed to detect narcotics, known as ALPHA6, to the Royal Thai Armed Forces Headquarters. 
The fourth case involves Chain Leasing, which registered as a cooperative allegedly to evade taxes and lure unsuspecting loan applicants. Most of the purported victims live in Thailand’s North and Northeast. 
The victims were reportedly duped into transferring their land plots to get loans, believing that the land would be returned to them after full repayments were made. However, the people applying for the loans reportedly never regained possession of the plots. 
The DSI board had been asked to consider approving seven cases under the special designation, but it decided to approve just four, Paisit said. 
Among the cases dismissed by the board at its latest meeting was a money-laundering case related to Raisom Company Limited. In that case, an official at MCOT was found to have abused her authority in allowing the firm to obtain more advertising time than was allowed by regulations. 
Her actions allegedly caused Bt138.79 million in damages to MCOT.
“The board has instructed us to gather more evidence first and to study whether any proceedings by the DSI would be redundant, given that MCOT has already been compensated and that the Court of Appeals has already issued a guilty verdict for people involved,” Paisit said.