Couple get 12,640 years each for investment fraud

Wantanee Tippaveth arrives at the Criminal Court for a hearing on Jan 27, 2020. She and her husband Methi Chinpha were sentenced to long prison terms for investment fraud on Wednesday. (File photo)
Wantanee Tippaveth arrives at the Criminal Court for a hearing on Jan 27, 2020. She and her husband Methi Chinpha were sentenced to long prison terms for investment fraud on Wednesday. (File photo)

The Criminal Court on Wednesday handed down prison terms totalling 12,640 years each to a married couple who ran a fake savings scheme, with victims reporting total losses of 1.3 billion baht.

The terms were commuted to 5,056 years because they confessed. The law limits their total prison time to 20 years each.

There were nine defendants in this case - Wantanee Tippaveth, her husband Methi Chinpha and seven others.

The court heard evidence that from March to Oct 2019, the nine defendants advertised on Facebook, inviting people to invest in a savings scheme offering a high return. The minimum investment was 1,000 baht. After nine months, investors would get a return of 930 baht plus the 1,000-baht - or 1,930 baht in total.

A total of 2,533 people joined the scheme. The total investment sum was 1.3 billion baht. It was alleged the nine defendants did not use the money for investment but shared it among themselves.

The prosecutors charged all nine with multiple counts of fraud.

The court found two of the nine defendants guilty as charged - Wantanee and Methi. The seven others were acquitted for lack of evidence.

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Vocabulary

  • acquittal: an official judgment in a court of law that someone is not guilty of the crime they were accused of - การตัดสินให้พ้นโทษ
  • commute (a punishment): to change a punishment to one that is less severe - ลดโทษ (รุนแรงให้น้อยลง)
  • confess (verb): to admit that you have committed a crime - สารภาพผิด
  • defendants (nloun): people who have been accused of a crime and are on trial - จำเลย
  • evidence: facts statements or objects that help to prove whether or not someone has committed a crime - หลักฐาน
  • fraud: something (or someone) that deceives people by not being what it seems to be; bogus - ไม่แท้ การโกง การหลอกลวง
  • investment (noun): the act of investing money in something - การลงทุน
  • scheme: a plan for achieving something, especially something illegal or dishonest - แผนการ (ที่มีท่าว่าจะผิดกฎหมาย)
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