Attorney-General explains Tantai non-prosecution, citing no Movie2Free proceeds traced to six suspects

Thailand’s Attorney-General decided not to prosecute Tantai Narongkoon and five other suspects for money laundering after finding no financial trail connecting them to proceeds from the alleged copyright offences involving the Movie2Free website.

The case file also failed to establish that money transferred by Tantai and several of the other suspects related to Movie2Free.

Instead, the identified payments concerned advertising on a separate website, including promotion of an online gambling site.

Another weakness was that investigators had not separated Movie2Free’s alleged income from pirated-film viewing from revenue generated through advertisements for online gambling sites, making it impossible on the evidence available to establish which funds represented proceeds from the copyright offence that formed the predicate offence for the money-laundering allegations.

The findings explain the Attorney-General’s final decision not to prosecute Tantai, chief executive of Titan Capital Group Holdings Co Ltd, and five co-suspects after the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) had disagreed with an earlier prosecutorial decision not to indict them.

The August 6 ruling resulted in special-case prosecutors notifying the DSI to seek withdrawal of the arrest warrants against the six.

Copyright case centred on 63 foreign films

The money-laundering investigation stemmed from a separate special case alleging commercial copyright infringement involving Movie2Free.

Nuwat Yongyut, suspect No.1, and Sarinee Nuchanart, suspect No.2, were accused of jointly making copyrighted broadcasts available to the public for commercial benefit without permission.

The case concerned 63 foreign films belonging to Warner Bros Entertainment Inc and other rights holders, involving a total of 65 companies, which were allegedly distributed through www.movie2free.com.

DSI investigators had already submitted that copyright case to prosecutors, where it remained under consideration.

The wider investigation involved 11 suspects:

1. Nuwat Yongyut
2. Sarinee Nuchanart
3. Tantai Narongkoon
4. Peeradet Sriyot
5. Phisitthat Premwanitchayadol, also known as Pornchai Pinkham
6. Saranyu Somjai
7. Saichon Yongyut
8. Hemrat Chaising, also known as Khemanatsawat
9. Phichai Chaoyaphrak
10. Kulaphat Samphaorot
11. Chaiyut Sansanabowon

Tantai and suspects Nos.5 and 8–11 were not prosecuted for jointly committing the underlying commercial copyright offence in Special Case No.22/2020 involving Movie2Free.

Witness did not link Tantai to purchase of Movie2Free files

A senior DSI investigator who filed the complaint told investigators that Tantai, identified in online communications as “Tantaiz” or “Tantaiz.1688”, had been involved in advertising contacts and had links to the management of several websites.

The investigation also referred to a technical team called “Deep”, which handled programming work.

Thale Chatsut, owner of www.sakkarinsai8.com, which provided access to television programmes, Thai and foreign films and live online content, told investigators that he had bought film files from Movie2Free in early 2018.

He said the contact was made through Line with somebody using the name “Tantaiz.1688”, and that he remembered the real name “Tantai” because Tantai had previously contacted him about placing an advertisement for www.ufa678.com on sakkarinsai8.com.

However, prosecutors noted that Thale did not confirm that he had bought the Movie2Free film files through Tantai. His evidence established only that the files had been purchased from Movie2Free.

Thale separately confirmed that Tantai had contacted him to place an advertisement for the ufa678.com online gambling website on sakkarinsai8.com and transferred 6,000 baht to a Krungthai Bank account on August 17, 2018, as payment for the advertising service.

Payments went to separate advertising website

The investigation also found that suspects Nos.8–11 transferred money to Jenjira Bamrungsin to pay for advertising services on Thale’s sakkarinsai8.com website.

Those payments were not for advertising on Movie2Free.

A review of the financial trail involving suspects Nos.1 and 2 found no transfers of assets derived from the alleged predicate copyright offence to Tantai or suspects Nos.5 and 8–11.

The financial records instead showed money flowing from Tantai and suspects Nos.8–11 to Jenjira.

The case file contained no evidence establishing that Jenjira was connected with Movie2Free or with suspects Nos.1 and 2.

Investigators did find links between Tantai and suspects Nos.8–11 and several online gambling websites, including ufa678.com. Thale’s evidence concerned Tantai’s request to advertise an online gambling site and payments by suspects Nos.8–11 for advertising on sakkarinsai8.com rather than Movie2Free.

Domain registration did not establish control during offence

Suspect No.5 had registered the movie2free.com domain in July 2014, before the period covered by the alleged offences.

By around July 2015, however, he was no longer able to control or administer the website.

The case file indicated that Nuwat and his associates controlled and operated Movie2Free during the period relevant to the copyright case.

Investigators also found that Nuwat owned www.ypsth.com, which provided the computer server used by Movie2Free. The evidence was considered sufficient to conclude that Nuwat had taken control of the Movie2Free website.

Gambling and piracy revenue not separated

A police major who examined the websites involved in the investigation concluded that Movie2Free was not solely a film-viewing website.

Its structure also carried graphics and advertisements for online gambling sites, allowing visitors to access advertised gambling services directly.

He believed Movie2Free’s main revenue did not come solely from fees paid to view films but also included income generated from online gambling advertisements.

That created another evidentiary problem because investigators had not separately established how much revenue came from viewing allegedly pirated films and how much came from online gambling activity.

The evidence also showed no financial trail in which assets generated by the alleged dissemination of copyrighted films through Movie2Free were transferred from suspects Nos.1, 2, 4, 6 or 7 into bank accounts belonging to Tantai or suspects Nos.5 and 8–11.

Prosecutors therefore concluded that the evidence could not establish that Tantai and suspects Nos.5 and 8–11 had conspired to launder money, committed money laundering as a result of such a conspiracy or jointly laundered proceeds connected to the predicate copyright offence.

Six suspects receive final non-prosecution order

The Attorney-General consequently issued a final order not to prosecute:

1. Tantai Narongkoon, suspect No.3
2. Phisitthat Premwanitchayadol, also known as Pornchai Pinkham, suspect No.5
3. Hemrat Chaising, also known as Khemanatsawat, suspect No.8
4. Phichai Chaoyaphrak, suspect No.9
5. Kulaphat Samphaorot, suspect No.10
6. Chaiyut Sansanabowon, suspect No.11

The allegations involved conspiracy by two or more people to commit money laundering, money laundering following such a conspiracy and joint money laundering under Sections 3, 5, 9 and 60 of the Anti-Money Laundering Act B.E. 2542 (1999), subsequent amendments to the Act and Sections 83 and 91 of the Criminal Code.

DSI investigators had originally recommended prosecution. Prosecutors subsequently issued a non-prosecution decision, which the DSI director-general contested by submitting an opinion that the suspects should be prosecuted.

The disagreement was referred to the Attorney-General, whose latest ruling finally resolved the matter in favour of non-prosecution on the grounds that the available evidence was insufficient to support the money-laundering charges.