A 70-year-old abbot accused of embezzling 300 million baht from a famous Buddhist temple and using it for gambling turned himself in to police in Bangkok on Thursday, just as they were about to seek a warrant for his arrest.
Phra Thamma Wachiranuwat, who is the abbot of Wat Rai Khing in Nakhon Pathom province and also an ecclesiastical region governor, showed up at the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) on Thursday morning at 10am for questioning.
According to a high-level police source, the Crime Suppression Division earlier received a complaint that money was being embezzled from the temple.
Plainclothes police investigators assigned to the temple spent eight months observing developments. They found that the abbot had the board of the temple transfer money from its bank account to his personal account. The money was then transferred to the account of a woman suspected of representing gambling websites.
Investigators found that about 300 million baht had been transferred from the temple’s account to the abbot’s account over the past five years. Detectives also found financial transactions worth at least 500 million baht between the abbot’s account and those of gambling websites.
As little money was left in the temple’s coffers, the abbot started to borrow from senior monks at other temples. The requests were often for six- and seven-digit sums, sources said.
The Central Criminal Court for Corruption and Misconduct Cases approved the police request for the arrest warrant at noon on Thursday. The abbot was charged with malfeasance and embezzlement while serving as a government official, in his role as a regional Buddhist official.
Police on Thursday arrested Aranyawan Wangthapan, 28, in connection with the case. She was previously arrested last year for alleged involvement with the Lagalaxy911 gambling website and was later released on bail.
The century-old Wat Rai Khing in Samphran district of Nakhon Pathom is a popular destination for Thais and foreigners who pay visits to pray for blessings.