Police on Thursday arrested the first suspect in the 1.4-billion-baht fraud in connection with the Chulalongkorn University Savings Cooperative, charging her with concealing embezzled money and laundering it for the main suspect, an associate professor who remains at large.
Methawat Khonman, 32, also known as Pochakorn, was arrested in Chiang Mai province and immediately sent to Bangkok for interrogation with senior police officers.
Pol Col Chakrit Sawasdee, deputy commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD), said Assoc Prof Sawat Saengbangpla had transferred altogether 62 million baht to the woman from 2010 to 2016. Pol Lt Gen Thitirat Nonghanpitak, commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau, said police would ask the Anti-Money Laundering Office to impound the assets connected to the wrongdoing.
As former chairman of the Chulalongkorn University Savings Cooperative, Assoc Prof Sawat lured former colleagues at the university into investing about 1.4 billion baht in his bogus government lottery cooperative.
He allegedly told his victims that he had a special quota of government lottery tickets and the resale was profitable.
Victims reportedly started to withdraw their savings in the university cooperative and transferred the money to him from 2010 to early this year, police said.
Miss Methawat, a native of Sa Kaeo province, said at the CSD that Assoc Prof Sawat had transferred 100,000-200,000 baht at a time for her to place online gambling bets on his behalf and he had wired to her altogether about 20 million baht.
She said she had known Assoc Prof Sawat in Chiang Mai through a mutual friend about a decade ago and met him only four times. She was paid the equivalent of 0.8% of his bets and presently makes a living selling clothing online.
Pol Lt Gen Thitirat said Miss Methawat was the second suspect in the embezzlement scandal and police were hunting for other people who had received money from Assoc Prof Sawat. Police believed he was hiding in the country, the commissioner said.
So far, 63 people filed complaints with the CSD, saying they lost altogether 443 million baht to the bogus lottery cooperative.