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Published on January 23, 2008

Police in Vietnam and Malaysia are cracking down on people operating the Colonyinvest pyramid scheme and who are possibly the same people that have cheated more than Bt5 billion out of Thai investors, Department of Special Investigation spokesman Piyawat Kingket said yesterday.

He said one of the prime suspects was a Malaysian man who had transferred dividends to Thai investors from a bank based in Kelantan in Malaysia until November, when the two websites operated by scheme operators were shut down.

Similar pyramid schemes to Colonyinvest had stopped paying dividends and closed down their websites after a police crackdown in Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia.

Piyawat named Euroempire and E-capital as examples, while a Colonyinvest "alternative site" located at www.colonyinvest-mg.com was still accessible in Thailand as of press time yesterday.

He said among the 50,000 Thai investors, the 1,000 based in the Northeast had suffered the most as many had invested millions of baht with Colonyinvest in each venture.

Some of the suspects in Vietnam have been arrested while Malaysian police are hunting those operating the scam locally.

Karun Romin, an ice vendor in Phang Nga, said he and three relatives had each invested Bt380,000 with Colonyinvest last September and received just one dividend of Bt45,000 from the scheme.

He said a man known as Rangsit Phutjaroen, who had asked him to invest, had since disappeared.

He said around 30 neighbours had lost Bt3 million to Colonyinvest and local police said they could not do anything except receive their complaints.

Deputy provincial governor Pititham Thitimontree said there had already been a large number of locals falling prey to the Rice Seed scheme operated by Easy Network. He had no idea how many victims of Colonyinvest there were now.

The Nation