A former chairman of Chulalongkorn University’s savings cooperative has been sentenced to 60 years in jail for money laundering in relation to a lottery investment fraud.
Sawad Saengbangpla, 80, and two other defendants - Jiratchada Khunyodying, 25, and Pawisaporn Baiket, 30 - were accused of collusing in laundering 42 million baht of the university cooperative's funds, and also of swindling people out of millions of baht in a lottery quota investment scam.
Sawad, a former chairman of the university’s savings cooperative, was taken from Bangkok Remand Prison to the court to hear the ruling on Thursday. The two women, who were earlier released on bail, were also at the court, Thai media reported.
The Criminal Court found Sawad, the first defendant; and Pawisaporn, the third defendant, guilty of colluding in money laundering.
Pawisaporn was initially sentenced to four years in jail. The sentence was then commuted to three years because she had confessed.
The court handed down an eight-year sentence for each of Sawad’s 10 offences as he had the authority to manage the savings cooperative. The sentences were each commuted to six years, or 60 years in total, because he confessed.
However, his actual prison sentence under the law will be a maximum of 20 years.
Sawad, a former assoc professor who taught computer engineering at the university, has been imprisoned since he was arrested in May 2017.
The court acquitted the second defendant, Ms Jiratchada, on grounds of insufficient evidence..
Sawad and Pawisaporn had been romantically involved.
The court found that Sawad had on many occasions transferred money gained from fraud to Pawisaporn via Ms Jiratchada's bank account.
Ms Jiratchada knew the third defendant but did not know Sawad directly.
Sawad also transferred money to another woman, Methawat or Patchakorn Khonman, 33, a defendant in another money laundering case.
On Nov 7 last year, the Criminal Court sentenced Sawad to 200 years and 600 months in jail for swindling 100 people out of 183.7 million baht in a lottery investment scam.
Sawad invited people to invest in the university’s savings cooperative, which he claimed would be used to purchase a ticket quota from the Government Lottery Office. He promised a monthly return of 1%.
He also falsely promised to return all the money, including the yield to investors in the final month of investment, but failed to do so, prosecutors said.