About 400 members of the Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative on Thursday filed a criminal public fraud suit against the KCUC and its former chairman Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, alleging they were enticed into depositing about 1.11 billion baht with it.
Acting on behalf of 412 cooperative members, Paiboon Nititawan said they accuse KCUC of concealing facts and presenting false information to lure them into depositing their funds.
It claimed to be an excellent cooperative and even a bank, and doctored its financial statements, he said.
Repayments to date to members whose savings were embezzled amounted to only 3-10% of their lost funds, and most of them were retirees who had lost their life savings, Mr Paiboon said.
The lawsuit was separate from another suit that public prosecutors filed against Supachai and 11 other people for fraud.
The 412 cooperative members filed their own fraud lawsuit with the Criminal Court, Mr Paiboon said. Damaged parties could not file a civil lawsuit against the cooperative because it was protected under the bankruptcy law, he said.
The outcome of the criminal lawsuit could lead to other action in the future, Mr Paiboon said.
The Criminal Court set July 23 for the examination of the lawsuit.
Supachai, 61, was found guilty in March 2016 and sentenced by the Criminal Court to 32 years in jail for siphoning off 22.1 million baht from the cooperative on eight occasions from April 10 to Oct 8, 2013. The court reduced the sentence to 16 years as he confessed to his crimes.
In September 2017 the Appeal Court reduced the lower court's sentence from 16 years to 14 years, and then to seven years. also based on his confession.
The case against Supachai was taken to the Criminal Court in May 2015.
In 2016 the Civil Court ordered Supachai and three former executives of the cooperative to repay 3.8 billion baht in compensation to the embezzlement-hit cooperative.
The executives also unlawfully allowed Supachai to borrow at least 12 billion baht from the cooperative. The offences took place from 2009 to 2012.