Four more suspects wanted in alleged pyramid fund

The Department of Special Investigations (DSI) has said it will increase manpower in the probe into Easy Network Marketing's alleged pyramid fund, as more people were filing complaints.

Chang Pheuk police superintendent Colonel Piyabutr Atchariyamongkol, assigned by Provincial Police Region 5 and the DSI to update the media, told a press conference yesterday that since the DSI took up the case on November 19, there had been 800 complainants, with 117 of them interviewed so far.

The problem was that some of these plaintiffs were afraid to give official testimony for fear of being prosecuted,too, especially those in Lamphun, Lampang, Chachoengsao, Satun, Phuket, Krabi and Nakhon Ratchasima where the company's branches are located, Piyabutr said.

Some plaintiffs also reportedly received threats that the company would not pay them if they talked to the police, he said, affirming that after the witness interviews were completed, police would seize assets of the firm and repay the plaintiffs.

The DSI investigation would conclude on December 30, after which Chang Pheuk police would take over the case.

In Bangkok, head of the DSI's Special Crime Office, Colonel Piyawat Kingket, said many more people filed complaints, and he thus planned to ask the DSI chief to add more investigators to the case. He would also ask the Justice Ministry's Central Institute of Forensic Science for experts to help with checking the firm's documents.

Since the DSI detained the firm's managing director Pathom Ansakul, 28, it must speed up the probe as it has 84 days to complete the case, given a maximum of seven 12day periods of courtgranted suspect detention, Piyawat said.

The investigation so far has shown that the firm had nearly Bt1 billion in capital, but the DSI has seized only Bt100 million, or 10 per cent of it, he said. The DSI would ask the AntiMoney Laundering Office to check the financial transactions of persons related to Pathom and Easy Network Marketing.

A source at the DSI said the firm's lucky draw events were suspected to be a marketing hoax as some winners reportedly used fake papers to receive the prizes. The firm's executives musty clarify to police who these winners were.

Many more people - mostly middleaged women living in provinces around Bangkok and in the South - filed complaints to the DSI yesterday, a source reported.

Most said they filed the complaints after learning that the police were investigating the firm, which had not yet paid them any dividends.

However, some still believed Pathom was a good man, saying that he paid for members' meals, allocated dividends systematically, and he had established the Thai Rum Ruay Party to run in the upcoming election.

A 34yearold plaintiff from Yala said Easy Network Marketing was wellknown in the South, and she was invited by a friend to invest with the company. At first she paid Bt2,100 for stock in acanned coffee beverage and received a dividend of double the amount she invested.

Becoming more confident, she joined a lucky draw and invested Bt35,000. She received a first dividend of Bt10,000, but then the company kept postponing the second dividend payment until Pathom was arrested, so she filed a compliant with police in the hope of getting her money back.

"I believe all investors knew that the company got money from newcomers to pay old investors, thus the dividend payment was not on a fixed schedule. But in the past we got high returns despite the delay and we were happy with that," she said.

Easy Network Marketing investors and employees went to Bangkok Special Prison yesterday to give morale support to Pathom, who is detained there. However, prison officials only allowed Pathom's relatives to see him.

Some investors reportedly were upset with the media presence and made impolite remarks while expressing their confidence that the firm would continue to operate.

Hua Mark police superintendent Colonel Wattana Yeejin said yesterday that police were viewing camera footage obtained from TITV after alleged assaults on reporters by investors during the police search of the firm on Wednesday.