A member of Thailand’s Klatham Party remains in custody as authorities continue to investigate his links to an illegal online gambling network.
Chonnapat Naksua handed himself into the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) yesterday (11 March) to answer questions related to his alleged role in an online gambling operation that dates back to 2019.
He is accused of being part of a group that ran an operation with more than 1bn baht (£23.5m) in circulation through a number of websites, including gimi88.com.
Authorities say that they have seized or frozen assets of approximately 158m baht (£3.7m) related to the network. Chonnapat himself has had 12m baht (£281,623) frozen by the Anti-Money Laundering Office.
As he was led out of the DSI’s building, he told local reporters that he was ‘confident in his innocence and had evidence to clarify every issue’.
Charges against Naksua include jointly organising gambling or arranging schemes, assisting in public announcements, advertising or directly or indirectly persuading others to take part in gambling in games not authorised by officials, as well as jointly committing money laundering.
After being taken into custody, investigators objected to bail due to concerns that Naksua could interfere with evidence, and he is now awaiting a decision over his temporary release.
The probe into Naksua and his associates continues the action being taken by Thai authorities to counter the country’s black market.
Last week, 93 arrests were made as part of an operation against a black market network targeting the Vietnamese market.
Action against the group was taken following reports of foreign nationals entering and exiting the same property, which was controlled by security staff and had a key-card system.
During the raid, the police discovered workers seated at computers and screens showing Vietnamese-language online gambling websites offering sports betting and online casinos.
Questioning of those present discovered that they had been recruited to work for the operation and were paid 30,000 baht each month (£704), paid into Vietnamese bank accounts.
