Amlo freezes B30m in 3 cases

The Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) has resolved to freeze assets worth about 30 million baht resulting from three criminal cases.

In the first case, the assets were valued at 13.7 million baht, including automatic car parking machines and money in bank accounts, and belonged to Apichat “Sia Piang” Chansakunphon, a well-known rice trader, his business associates and TC Property.

The freeze stemmed from the bogus sale of rice in the rice-pledging scheme under the Yingluck Shinawatra government, Amlo said.

In August 2017, Mr Apichat was jailed for 48 years in prison and ordered to pay 16.9 billion baht to the Finance Ministry in damages.

Pol Maj Gen Preecha Charoensahayanont, acting secretary-general of Amlo, said the decision to freeze the assets was reached by the board on Tuesday.

In a second case, 163 items of assets worth more than four million baht were frozen in connection with last year’s 2.8-billion-baht embezzlement in the Railway Club Cooperative that allegedly involved Boonsong Honthong, its former president and founder.

In the third case, a freeze was ordered on 39 items of assets worth about 11.5 million baht. That case involved Sunthon Mayoe and his associates who were accused of links to a transnational drug and money-laundering network operated by a Chinese businessman known as Chiangma or “Hia Chang”.

Police found that Mr Sunthon had hundreds of millions of baht circulating in his bank accounts and frequently transferred the money to accounts owned by drug suspects.