Con victims face only measly payback
‘Fraudster’ helps cops find missing millions
The former chairman of Chulalongkorn University’s savings cooperative says he can only afford to compensate victims of his lottery scam at between 10% and 20% of total damages.
Sawad Saengbangpla, 79, was speaking at a news conference held by the Crime Suppression Division (CSD) yesterday.
Mr Sawad turned himself in to police on Monday. He had been in hiding since late last month following complaints from about 60 members of the cooperative that he had misled them into investing in his “government lottery cooperative” for a monthly 1% return.
He said he had been an investor in realestate and direct-sales businesses, but failed to receive the rewards he was hoping for, which led him to begin defrauding others.
Mr Sawad said he may not be able to return all the money to his victims. He said he would sell off his assets and company shares to return money to the damaged parties, which could account for around 10%-20% of total losses, or around 50-80 million baht. He said his scam had netted him around 400 million baht.
Three women were arrested late last month for allegedly receiving and laundering millions of baht from the elderly academic.
One of them, Potchakorn, or Methawat Khonman, received 62 million baht from Mr Sawad, according to a probe. The 32-year-old woman was detained last month.
Mr Sawad said Ms Potchakorn borrowed the money to run her direct-sales business. Her business was eventually hit by losses, so she promised to sell her plots of land to return the money to him. But that did not happen, Mr Sawad said.
He said he used hundreds of thousands of baht taken from investors to repay debts and gamble in Singapore.
He said he wanted to offer an apology to lecturers and other people who were deceived by him and would give more information to police so that as much money as possible could be recouped and returned to the victims.
Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) chief Thitirat Nongharnpitak said Mr Sawad had confessed that he had lured people into investing in his bogus scheme.
Pol Lt Gen Thitirat also called on the public to carefully scrutinise businesses they are thinking about investing in as they could also fall prey to scams.
Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) officials have been contacted to check Mr Sawad’s assets to determine whether they were linked to the scam.
Sakda Pannengpetch, a former communication arts lecturer at Chulalongkorn University, who is one of the victims, said Mr Sawad had held the position of chairman of the university’s savings cooperative, which made him a trustworthy figure.
Mr Sakda said Mr Sawad phoned and invited him to invest in the lottery scheme on Nov 20 last year, and three days later he made an investment contract.
He said he put five million baht in the investment, the sum drawn from the cooperative’s loan. Mr Sakda said when the swindle was exposed, everyone was upset.
The Government Lottery Office director has said that people should be wary of invitations to invest in lottery schemes.