$23M USD uFun Club laundering ring busted, new processor?
As Thai police continue their investigation into uFun Club, new details have emerged on how uFun investors laundered money out of Thailand.
uFun Club management might have been laundering through a complex network of banks tied to the Pacific, but for their investors it was a far more simple affair.
Get suckers to deposit funds into a bank account, withdraw funds, strap said funds onto your body and… hope to hell you aren’t stopped by border patrol.
Such was the modus operandi of Niphaphorn Lamee, Theerawaj Phatcharasuyayai, Natthawaran Uttamakaew Boon Kiat Choo, who
had opened bank accounts for UFUN members to wire money into. They then allegedly withdrew this money and smuggled it into Malaysia for laundering purposes.
The quartet were arrested a few days ago, trying to smuggle over a half million dollars between Thailand and Malaysia.
Police investigation of the four suspects’ accounts showed that they had allegedly withdrawn and possibly smuggled Bt779 million ($23.3 million USD) over the past year.
The gang allegedly made withdrawals of Bt2 million ($60,000 USD) each several times a day, he said, adding that one day as many as nine withdrawals were made.
uFun Club investors like this were routinely put on pedestals and heralded as success stories in investor marketing campaigns:
The reality though is that they stole millions of dollars from their victims, in exchange for completely worthless uToken Ponzi points.
Suwira added that investigators were contacting banks because they wanted to look into another 16 bank accounts that Choo had allegedly opened to accommodate deposits made by UFUN members.
The extent of the financial losses Choo is responsible for has yet to be determined.
With who knows how many other uFun Club affiliates engaged in the same behavior around the world, this is going to be one hell of a mess to clean up when the time comes.
In related news, it’s also come to light that “UTokens” and “UToken Mutual Fund” were recently added to the Malaysian Securities Commission blacklist:
The public is advised not to make any investment with companies/individuals that are not licensed or approved by the SC.
Offers often come in the guise of seemingly attractive investment opportunities or schemes and may also be camouflaged as direct selling or business opportunities.
When exactly the new listing were made is unclear, but they are in addition to uFun Club itself, which was added last year.
Despite Malaysia emerging as a destination of choice for uFun Club investors to launder millions of dollars through, and the Malaysian Securities Commission blacklisting the scheme, Malaysian authorities have yet to publicly commit to a uFun Club investigation.
Our last bit of uFun Club information today pertains to the setting up of a new payment processor.
For months uFun Club investors have been unable to withdraw funds from the scheme, with those asking why being told to shut up by other investors, lest the truth about the state of uFun Club be openly discussed.
Reports began to surface late last night, suggesting that uFun Club investors in Europe, the US, Australia and other western countries were now able to sign up to new payment processor.
Why uFun Club affiliates in Asia (where the vast majority of uFun investors are based) are unable to use the processor is unclear.
How Asian investors feel about their western counterparts withdrawing their funds and depleting what’s left in uFun’s bank accounts, remains to be seen.
Instructions posted on Facebook, that were promptly deleted only a short time after, indicate that uFun investors must sign up through a uFun Club referral link (so that they can collect referral commissions), after which withdrawals are purportedly possible.
At the time of publication I haven’t seen any confirmation of funds being withdrawn out of uFun.
Meanwhile, wholly aware that financial regulations are the cause of uFun Club losing its previous payment processor services, this time around a veil of secrecy is being urged:
As such which payment processor uFun Club have signed on with is not known. You can bet though that they didn’t use the uFun Club name to sign up, with the whole referral thing sounding like they might have just signed up with a regular account.
In any case, what with these being new accounts, it shouldn’t take long for the money laundering filters that closed the original accounts to kick in again.
When you’re talking millions of dollars being requested from bank accounts all over the world from accounts that obviously don’t have enough funds to pay out, expect regulatory intervention at the payment processor level sooner rather than later.
We’ll keep you posted…
Update 23rd May 2015 – Upon further investigation, police have adjusted the amount Niphaphorn Lamee, Theerawaj Phatcharasuyayai, Natthawaran Uttamakaew Boon Kiat Choo laundered to a staggering 1.8 billion THB ($53.7 million USD).
Police revealed that Bt1.816 billion had been withdrawn from 33 bank accounts and had been smuggled out of Thailand in two ways – Boon Kiat Choo, who was arrested together with the three Thais, smuggled the cash to Malaysia, or a Penang-based man received the money from Boon, after he withdrew the money from a Penang bank.
Police are now also investigating the extent to which local Thai celebrities promoted uFun too:
Chief investigator Pol Lt-General Suwira Songmetta said a singer – Supakij Tangthatsawas – had made an appointment with the police yesterday to explain his alleged links with UFUN as a key endorser, who openly invited the public to invest in UFUN.
The officer also named comedian Theerachart “Ood Pentor” Theerawitthayaku and country singer Khwannapha “Lala” Ruengsri as such endorsers who would be later summoned for questioning.
Also Athiwat Soonpan (uFun’s fake general) got a mention, suggesting he might have returned to Thailand:
Suwira said the Malaysian police were willing to probe a suspected link between a key UFUN Thailand suspect on the run – Maj-General Athiwat Sunpan – after he was found taking a photo with the son of a high-ranking Malaysian politician.
Last we heard Soonpan had fled to the US back in April. There’s a warrant out for his arrest so this might be additional investigation to ascertain his links to Mohd Nazifuddin, son of the current Malaysian Prime Minister.
i had checked the malaysian securities commission’s site approx 4 days ago and utoken/utoken mutual fund were not blacklisted then.
so this blacklisting is very very recent.
but well, ufun has dumped the utoken and has progressed to selling ‘points’ which can be exchanged for cash, or pre IPO shares. so, this blacklisting is a bit late.
but anyways, Great Effort by malaysia! this will Stop the ufun ponzi! no?
goodluck to ufun with that. sooner than later some member will ‘out’ the name of the payment processor company.
i think because ufun is from malaysia, they have this strange notion that they can ‘control’ the dissemination of information.
that may well work within malaysia borders, but i think they are overstepping if they think they can ‘control’ the internet.
the FB page ‘utoken ufun investors’ published this message 13 hours ago:
with thailand and now china investigating ufun, i guess they’re watching the asian situation for a while, before starting up business again.
if ufun is thinking their problems in asia will ‘fade out’, they should think again because asia is not malaysia.
Oh wow. I didn’t realize this when I posted it, but “Elvis uFun” from the Rodney Burton video appears to be one of the money launderers arrested by police on the Thai border! (JusticeAlwaysLate)
How’s that for poetic justice?
And Rodney Burton, presenting money launders who stole millions of dollars as something to aspire to…
For shame.
umesh rana has posted some information about the new payment gateway system ufun has launched for US, european and australian investors.
apparently members are purchasing ‘ufun energy water’ packages.
facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10204581376322886&set=gm.891167747614136&type=1&theater
anjali: The link you provided has already been taken down. When clicking it says not available.
Amount laundered by this mob has been adjusted to $53.7 million USD.
Also Thai celebrities have come under fire for promoting uFun, as well as police announcing they are “willing” to investigate Athiwat Soonpan’s links to Mohd Nazifuddin.
@Lynn
Haha Umesh Rana made his whole uFun Club group private.
Let the running begin!
but the IGP of the malaysian police has already spoken to the press, and said that he spoke to the thai police, and they did not mention nazifuddin razak, son of the prime minister of malaysia.
this further prompted the IGP to conclude that nazi was not involved with ufun in any way.
if the malaysian police has had a fresh conversation with the thai police, and are now willing to investigate nazi’s ufun links, maybe the malaysian IGP should inform the press about it as quickly as he can? he must not tarry.
yeah, any ufun facebooker who gets an ‘honorable’ mention on behindmlm, wraps up their acts pretty soon and fast.
we are just cyber bullies! 🙂
except that cyberbullying ponzi scammers may not be such a bad thing after all!
i’m just waiting to see if lynn summers goes through with her webinar next week. with her being reported to the ASIC and all, it may not be such a good idea. she seems more enthusiastic and misguided, rather than a hardass ponzi scammer.
and yes! lynn summers is going ahead with her webinar sometime this week:
she will lecture people and impress them with some stats about the nickel industry, and then tell everyone about how pre IPO nickel mine shares are the best thing that could happen to them!
lynn summers will hopefully tell everybody the exact location of the mine, along with it’s name and the names of the current owners. we want real information lynn, don’t drown us with irrelevant stuff.
over the last few days [23rd may, 2015 onwards] ufun seminars
have been held in various places ‘selling’ pre IPO shares.
i’m just wondering that since ufun does not have a payment gateway in place for asian countries yet, how are they transferring cash collected, to malaysia?
– Pre-IPO Seminar at Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
– Pre-IPO Seminar at East Indonesia [timur]
– Pre-IPO Seminar at Medan, Indonesia
– Pre-IPO Seminar in Taiwan
so, while the MACC, malaysia is checking the accounts of sabah based businessman raymond chan,to see if his firm sagajuta has laundered ufun money, ufun is happily holding seminars and selling pre IPO shares in sabah.
i found the information again on another ufun FB page, which shows that members are paying for ‘ufun energy water’, while using the new payment gateway
facebook.com/1523750774534131/photos/a.1523760761199799.1073741828.1523750774534131/1598036750438866/?type=1&theater
yesterday a ufun/utoken seminar was held somewhere in china.
they have people sitting at computers to apparently train them for something.
if it’s utoken training, then i wonder what’s up because ‘leaders’ are announcing that there will be no utoken from july onwards, and utokens will be converted to IPO shares.
if they’re training people about how to trade IPO shares it will be such a hoot!, because you know, they don’t have anything worth listing anywhere, unless if vanuatu has a stock exchange!
the ufun/utoken logos are clearly visible in the background. the investigations and arrests by the chinese police, is obviously water off a ducks back.
facebook.com/UtokenLatestNews/photos/pcb.1624484254434656/1624483477768067/?type=1&theater
I thought the Chengdu thing was next month?
And I’d be taking anything published on social media with a larger grain of salt than normal these days. At least until Dato Didarunner resurfaces.
Photos are undated, and we have no idea what those events are.
Latest is the celeb stuff in Thailand, which isn’t particularly interesting.
i thought so too. maybe its been preponed or utoken news has made a mistake.
i don’t think many ufunners can tell their ass from their elbow at this point.