Prosecutors have postponed taking billionaire property tycoon Anant Asavabhokhin to court on charges of money laundering linked to the decade-old Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative (KCUC) embezzlement scandal because he is now in a coma, a source said.
The 73-year-old founder and former chairman of Land & Houses Plc has suffered suffered severe complications following a kidney transplant, said the source, who asked not to be identified.
The case against Mr Anant had lain dormant for years before he was finally indicted on Feb 16 this year for money laundering.
The Department of Special Investigation first recommended in 2019 that Mr Anant be prosecuted but the Office of the Attorney-General rejected the investigation report, as well as subsequent attempts by the DSI to get prosecutors to reconsider.
During all that time, Mr Anant had been required to report to prosecutors every three months pending a decision on whether he would be indicted.
Mr Anant was scheduled to appear in the Criminal Court on April 2 to answer the indictment. However, he failed to respond and his lawyer requested a postponement, providing a medical certificate.
Two more appearances scheduled in May and June were also postponed, before prosecutors ordered officials from the Criminal Money Laundering Division to investigate whether Mr Anant’s health problems were legitimate.
The investigation found that he is suffering from end-stage renal failure.
The source said Mr Anant underwent a kidney transplant in Australia, but the new organ is being rejected. He now requires dialysis three times a week until another kidney transplant can be performed.
Currently, a new transplant is not possible due to other illnesses, including heart failure, a brain haemorrhage, and lack of immune system stability.
He cannot be moved from a sterile environment as it could lead to infection and death, the source said.
Tangled web of corruption
The Klongchan Credit Union Cooperative scandal, which dates back to 2012, was one of the largest embezzlement cases in the country’s history.
Investigators discovered that its former chairman, Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, wrote a total of 878 cheques to withdraw 12 billion baht of members’ hard-earned savings. He is now serving a sentence of 16 years in prison.
Some of the embezzled money was subsequently directed to Wat Phra Dhammakaya, a controversial and very wealthy temple where Mr Anant has long been a devout follower.
Supachai also used some of the stolen money to take over a real-estate company that owned a large tract of land in Pathum Thani.
Some of the land was then sold to Land & Houses, which was then chaired by Mr Anant, the DSI found.
A separate investigation by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) uncovered a complex series of transactions linking Mr Anant to Phra Dhammachayo, the fugitive former abbot of Wat Phra Dhammakaya.
Donations to the temple were said to have come from the nearly 500 million baht earned from the resale of the land, which was originally bought for 93.8 million, investigators said.