The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has arrested three women for allegedly giving false statements in a multi-billion-baht inheritance dispute involving the daughter of Yong Bai Khan, a deceased influential figure in Lop Buri, and her aunt.
Watcharee Jantherdthai, Malinee Pongsawang and Chayanit Pongsawang were arrested on March 1, Pol Lt Col Santana Kaewtubtim, a DSI investigator, said yesterday.
The arrest follows a complaint by Sobeda Pongsawang, a daughter of businessman Somchai Pongsawang, alias Yong Bai Khan, that her aunt Rassamee Khan and the three suspects allegedly gave false statements in an inheritance dispute. Ms Sobeda claimed the four had told a court that Ms Watcharee was a common-law wife of Somchai and the couple had one daughter, Ms Chayanit. They sought a court order to appoint Ms Rassamee as the executor of Somchai's estate. Somchai was shot dead in 2002.
Ms Sobeda's mother was Wandee Sritrang, who was one of the country's most popular film stars in the early 1970s before she collapsed and died suddenly in 1975 at the age of 25.
Before the DSI took up the allegations as a special case, the complainant and her family had sought protection from the agency, claiming Ms Rassamee was pressuring her to give up a plot of land in Chiang Mai which Ms Sobeda lives on and owns. Ms Rassamee had asked Ms Sobeda to transfer the land to her, Pol Lt Col Santana said.
Ms Sobeda told the DSI that a group of men had tried to abduct her daughter from a school in Chiang Mai province. The abduction scare forced her and her family into hiding for six months.
Pol Lt Col Santana said DSI investigators have obtained evidence indicating that an affair between Ms Watcharee and Somchai was unlikely to have occurred. The DSI has also found suspicious details in Ms Chayanit's birth certificate. Testimony by several witnesses suggested Ms Watcharee did not marry Somchai or become impregnated by him between 1989 and 1990 as she claimed. There is also evidence that Somchai was not living in Thailand during that period, Pol Lt Col Santana said.
Ms Rassamee remains at large.