uFun accountant’s third property seized, victims climb to 1000
When uFun Club accountant Namonpan Thara-bundit was caught attempting to flee Thailand for Laos, she told police that she
tried to quit the business after noticing alleged irregularities in UFUN Thailand and claimed she told UFUN Thailand members in her team of her suspicions.
“UFUN Thailand management then got angry. My account at UFUN Thailand has been suspended. I can no longer conduct any transaction or withdraw any money,” she claimed.
Yet Thara-bundit’s actions over the last few months paint a totally different picture.
Police yesterday revealed that, using funds she stole from uFun Club victims, Thara-bundit bought
a two-storey house on 300 square metres last December under her auto-parts dealer ex-husband’s name.
Police had already seized two other properties belonging to Thara-bundit, one of them used as a local uFun Club office.
In addition to concealing properties by buying them in other people’s names, Thara-bundit also dissipated other assets before she attempted to flee.
Colonel Angkul Klaikleung, deputy chief of the Consumer Protection Police Division, urged people who received Namonpan’s assets – such as two Mercedes and a brand-new Honda sedan – to notify police so they would not be charged.
She also ‘transferred money to other individuals on various occasions’, with those transactions now under police scrutiny.
All in all it seems Thara-bundit hoped assets in other people’s names would be safe from seizure. Then when Thai police began to crackdown she got rid of most of her illegal Ponzi money, gave away the cars and tried to flee Thailand.
Presumably the game plan was to meet up with other uFun Club executives in Malaysia, at which point money she transferred out of her name would be returned.
Either that or if her story about her relationship with uFun turning sour is to be believed, Tara-bundit might have simply tried to disappear (as other uFun Club executives have done).
In any event Thara-bundit now remains under police custody and is facing criminal charges. Information she reveals to the police will likely be of much help in putting together uFun Club’s local Thailand operations.
Suwira said the case would be filed with public prosecutors this month, so prosecutors could compile documents and evidence before officially contacting Malaysian authorities.
Malaysian authorities are also looking into an alleged pyramid scheme linked to a company there called UFUN Store.
There seems to be slightly differing accounts with respect to a Malaysian uFun investigation, with a meeting two days ago resulting in Thailand and Malaysia working together to investigate the scam.
On the prosecution side of things (arrests etc.) it seems Thai police have to first file their case with the Thai Public Prosecutors.
This uFun Store thing Malaysia are investigating meanwhile is just one of the many layers in the uFun Club scheme onion.
Closer analysis will reveal all these names are really just the same entity, used to push illegally invested funds across borders.
At the time of publication the latest figures out of Thailand detail a thousand or so victims with claims of $5.9 million USD.
Stay tuned…
Oh hello! Additional information from the Bangkok Post…
Turns out Tharabundit didn’t disclose the house to police, it was a fellow suspect who ratted her out:
And just to make the Malaysian Thailand cooperation that much more confusing:
I believe he’s talking about the co-operation of uFun Club exectuveis (in getting arrested?), seeing as Thailand and Malaysia are already cooperating now.
bangkokpost.com/news/crime/556455/police-raid-house-linked-to-ponzi-scam
hey what’s this! i thought according to reports day before yesterday, that malaysian and thai police were going to have meetings in phuket, between the 11th and 14th, mainly dealing with ufun?
i think that should read :
then it would match suwira’s statement that after filing the case with the prosecutors [ ie prepare and submit ‘chargesheet’], they would officially contact malaysian authorities.
so, it seems whatever the ‘counselor’ at the malaysian embassy had blurbed, has been upended by the malaysian ambassador to thailand himself.
the malaysian ambassador is basically saying that malaysia will not cooperate at this investigation stage, the thai police must first ‘charge’ the arrestees formally, before approaching them.
no wonder dato dan was prancing around KLCC yesterday!
malaysia is trying to drag things, and will probably allow dato dan to disappear conveniently.
BTW where is eddy tan? he was there at gateway klang but absent in the indonesian mine tour, and also yesterdays unispace program. has he too broken ranks and run?
Just got this one. It looks very aggressive activities. What do you think?
Does this Thai and Malaysia incident look isolated and does not seems to affect other destinations in the world. Which is which, fraud or real?
(link removed, video discussed here – https://behindmlm.com/companies/ufun-club/thailand-and-malaysia-team-up-to-investigate-ufun-club/)
uFun Club use the same Ponzi business model the world over. Asset seizure in Thailand has already hurt them, and currently uFun affiliates are not being paid by the company (and have not been for some time).
You can only go through so many regulatory investigations before your bank accounts are frozen by the banks themselves (if this hasn’t already happened).
Keeping up appearances.
For those who read history… Charles Ponzi survived at least two ‘runs’ on his operations, when panicked people flooded his office demanding their money back after the newspapers exposed some of his misdeeds.
Instead of panicking and shut the doors, the story was he ordered coffee and sweets to be passed out to the people waiting in line. That basically convinced most of the people who wanted their money back to leave, and the run fizzled after that.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ponzi#Collapse_of_the_scheme
Meetin between between Thai Police & Malaysia official.
View here: youtube.com/watch?v=qOzeJNjjx14
now26 Tv report may 11:
now26.tv/view/43834/IF-UFUN-EXECUTIVE-CONNECTED-TO-MALAYSIAN-PM-S-SON.html
guess what comes up on the screen at 5:20 !!
too much! too much!!
IS UFUN EXECUTIVE CONNECTED TO MALAYSIAN PM’S SON?
now26.tv/view/43834/IF-UFUN-EXECUTIVE-CONNECTED-TO-MALAYSIAN-PM-S-SON.html
it’s just amazing how the malaysian media can remain silent after so much dirt is being spewed by neighbor thailand.
so whats the problem of the malaysian media? here’s some dirt on the malaysian media:
so malaysia is a back seat boy when it comes to freedom of press rankings, as govt owns most of it.
uh, lyn summers top ufun recruiter from australia, seems to have tottered off the deep end a bit. all the wining and dining and mining in malaysia/indonesia, has made the lady feeble minded, i say.
here’s what she posted today:
so, she’s crazy enough to invest in danial tay’s ‘vision’, and this makes ufun legit? who is she??
Summers is little more than someone who got into MLM by investing in i2g/G1E.
She made a terrible investment decision there and is doing a repeat performance in uFun Club.
For some reason naive Asian uFun Club investors are hailing her as an investment mogul. I guess she’s really good at spinning bullshit?
Unconfirmed reports of an arrest in China. Appears to be a Malaysian national. Standby…
Confirmed: jsga.gov.cn/www/jsga/2010/jwdt-mb_a3915043014188.htm
But buggered if I can read it. Fiance is at work and auto-translation of Chinese is garbage.
From what I can gather Chinese regulators began to look into uFun Club in September 2014, with an official investigation launched in October.
The guy arrestd is LEE GUANG CHEN AARON, a Malaysian national who was pimping uFun Club in China. He was arrested on April 27th at an airport. Not sure if he was attempting to flee China
29 million yuan seized, bank cards, computer equipment etc.
Chinese regulators estimate uFun Club’s activities in China involve 3.6 million investors across 31 provinces, with 500 million yuan invested ($80.5 million USD).
I’m not confident enough to publish an article (the above is gleaned from auto-translate and might not be 100% accurate). Kasey I know you can read Chinese, any help appreciated.
Full credit to JusticeAlwaysLate for uncovering the arrest.
Additional news coverage – special.cpd.com.cn/n28640785/n28640801/c28674644/content.html
Auto-translate is even worse than the government site.
Someone who reads Chinese tell us what went down!
great, with china chiming in, its all over for ufun.
you bet. apparently she signed a non disclosure agreement for the privilege of watching a video:
the BS is hitting the fan now.
when ufun members ask about the payment gateway it’s like, hey we are all waiting for the payment gateway, meanwhile look at the Big Picture!
members are being encouraged to buy utoken packs of 5000$ for the pre IPO of the ‘nickel mine’. and there are idiots proclaiming they will invest too!
i think summers may have started asking dato dan some questions, and he sat her down to watch videos instead!
Big Picture!
The China official has been probing (since September 2014) on oversea MLM organization under the name of UFUN who uses U Tokens as a mean of investment, while at the same time conducting illegal activities.
The China Official has arrested Aaron Lee who has been involved in illegal MLM activities.
He is one of the core members involved and has been evading the China police arrest.
The China Officials has arrested 10 top personnel while froze RMB2900++million of asset. They also uncover large amount of bank card, laptop, etc.
The case has involved 31 states/district over China , 3.6 million investor and investment around RMB5 billion ++.
jsga.gov.cn/www/jsga/2010/jwdt-mb_a3915043014188.htm
They’ve arrested ten individuals and we’re only now finding out about it?!
5 billion CYB is $800 million USD! Holy crap!
2900 million CNY = 2.9 billion? If so that’s $467 million USD seized!
Roughly translated but you get the whole picture
At the rate this is going it is going to exceed TelexFree in the amount of money stolen.
Cheers, I’ll have a report up shortly.
They’ve still got a billion or so to go.
What I’m curious about is how deeply this seizure guts uFun Club’s operations. Between Thailand and China that’s roughly half of the (known) funds stolen.
Obviously Dato Dan has shovelled the rest of it off to some hidey-hole, but how on Earth do they expect to pay people off with what’s left?
No wonder they’re stalling with talk of “investment points” and all these signing ceremonies…
And also change of bank