PUBLISHED : 1 Nov 2024 at 04:00
A group of 20 people yesterday petitioned the Economic Crime Suppression Division (ECD) of the police’s Central Investigation Bureau against a company they said deceived them into investing in a non-existent clean energy business.
Kittikhun Saenghirun, a representative from the Lawyers Council of Thailand (LCT), led the group in filing the complaint.
Ms Aphantree, a group representative, said that at the end of 2019, the company sent her and other alleged victims a link to invest in clean energy generators.
She said the company claimed the machines could be sold domestically and internationally.
She stated the company needed investors and was selling company shares at 100 baht each. Investors were supposed to start receiving dividends in 50 weeks and continue to receive them throughout their lives.
She said the company claimed there would be more earnings for those who recommended new investors.
Ms Aphantree said she and other alleged victims then spent their retirement savings on the business, starting in Sept 2019 and received a 3% dividend in 30 weeks.
The alleged victims later bought a large number of shares, around hundreds of thousands to millions of baht. But in May 2020, the company’s assets were confiscated by authorities, she said. The company persuaded them in a Line group with 2,000 members not to file a complaint, arguing that the government had harassed them by taking control of and terminating their accounts.
She said the company claimed to buy back shares and compensate victims, but this didn’t happen for everyone. Only the first group of 299 people received compensation after the case was brought to court.
“We are not in the first group, so we ask for help with the ECD today,” Ms Aphantree said, adding that she believed there were about 70,000 victims, but many of them may not know how to proceed legally.
Mr Kittikhun said that LCT will set up a complaint centre so the remaining people affected can contact the council for legal help.