Puttidej Bunkrapue, commander of the economic crime suppression division under the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), said the duo are key suspects in a large-scale money-laundering scheme.
He said the 38-year-old Malaysian man, wanted under a warrant issued by the criminal court, was detained at the Sadao immigration checkpoint in Songkhla on Monday while entering Thailand. His Thai wife was arrested at a separate location yesterday.
“Both suspects face charges of collusion in money laundering,” Puttidej said in a statement today.
During interrogation, Puttidej said both suspects admitted to recruiting individuals to set up legal entities, primarily for opening bank accounts, which were then sold to clients in several Asean countries.
Theeraphas Yungyuen, who is leading the investigation, said the operation was a highly organised network involving both Thai and foreign nationals.
“The syndicate laundered more than five billion baht through complex layers of fraudulent transactions,” he said, adding that more than 50 arrest warrants had been issued against individuals linked to the scheme over the past few months.
He said the suspects orchestrated the laundering process by moving funds through multiple bank accounts before converting the money into USDT (Tether) cryptocurrency.
“The use of digital assets significantly complicated efforts to trace the funds,” he added.
Theeraphas said the arrests followed complaints from victims duped into investing through fake mobile applications like “Nicshare” and “ComonApps”, where these apps falsely promised high returns from stock market investments.
He added that the CIB had launched “Operation Ghost Company” and uncovered more than 200 shell companies across Thailand, many of which were non-operational but used to open mule bank accounts facilitating money laundering.
“The CIB is determined to track down the remaining members of this criminal network and ensure that those responsible for creating shell companies and facilitating money laundering are brought to justice,” he said.
Thai police yesterday arrested a Malaysian man and his Thai wife in Nonthaburi here on suspicion of operating a money-laundering network linked to illegal gambling websites.
The suspects were apprehended during a raid at their residence. Police seized cash amounting to four million baht, vehicles, jewellery, luxury watches and branded bags during the operation.