The founder of a company involved in the Bangkok Bank of Commerce (BBC) scam 20 years ago has been sentenced to 155 years in jail and a fine of 31 million baht.
He will also have to pay 732 million baht in damages to the now-defunct bank's creditors. His jail term, however, was reduced to 20 years, the maximum allowed by law.
The Bangkok Criminal Court made the ruling on Monday on 31 counts with a jail term of five years and a fine of one million baht each.
The case involved eight defendants, all of whom are former executives of BBC, Siam Mass Construction Co Ltd and American Standard Appraisal Co Ltd.
The court found two of the eight guilty as charged while the rest were acquitted.
Chattawat Muttamara, who set up Siam Mass Construction, was convicted of jointly possessing assets acquired fraudulently and malfeasance under the Criminal Code and the 1992 Securities and Exchanges Act.
Public attorneys said BBC executives offered in 1994 to advise Siam Mass Construction on the acquisition of an insurance company. Siam Mass later borrowed 570 million baht from BBC to buy the insurer's shares, pledging 6 million shares and 51 plots in Chiang Rai province, valued at 656 million baht as collateral.
A year later, the BBC executives approved an overdraft loan worth 656 million baht to the company without sending the case to the board of directors for approval as required by the Bank of Thailand.
Chattawat was found guilty as charged since he applied for the loans and multiple money transfers from BBC were made to his bank account for which he could not explain.
The other convicted defendant was former BBC president Krikkiat Jalichandra. Since Krikkiat died two years ago, the case against him was dismissed.
The collapse of BBC in the 1990s came to symbolise an era of reckless and poorly supervised lending that helped lead to the economic crash of 1997 in Thailand. Its collapse under the weight of US$3 billion in debts in 1995 preceded the failure of 56 other financial institutions.
BBC stood out because it extended huge sums through devious channels and dummy accounts to politicians and their proxies for property and stock speculation, corporate takeovers and other purposes.