The son of a former senator renowned for his academic expertise in gambling, has been apprehended for allegedly owning and providing a payment system for an online gambling network. Police confiscated assets worth more than 400 million baht.
Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD), on Wednesday briefed the press about the arrest of Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, the son of former senator Sangsit, an economist and expert on corruption and gambling, following crackdowns at three locations across the capital.
Police also arrested Narayut Narakaew, 39, the owner of the gambling website “69pgslot.com”. The duo were wanted on arrest warrants issued by the Criminal Court for colluding in operating an online gambling website and for money laundering.
During the raid, police confiscated two desktop computers, one notebook, 14 mobile phones, 21 passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-price cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus, and a Subaru — all worth over 400 million baht in total.
Police initiated the investigation when they discovered the online gambling site with payments made via an automatic deposit-withdrawal system through bank accounts and deposits in the Ask Me Pay system. Those invlved scanned the QR code of Vpay and the QR code of Heng Online 888 Company or Heng Pay Company.
Police also found the money scanned via the QR codes was transferred to the account of Heng Pay Company and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts via the Ask Me Pay payment system to avoid the bank’s face scanning system. An investigation revealed a monthly turnover of about 5 billion baht.
The findings showed the website had been in operation for about four years, while the payment system had been used for around eight months.
Pol Maj Gen Athip said Mr Narote was the owner of the payment systems for the gambling website and also the director of Heng Pay Company. After gathering evidence, police later sought arrest warrants against 14 suspects.