Ex-senator’s son held in online gambling scandal

Payment network set up to circumvent bank scrutiny, say police

The son of a former senator renowned for his academic expertise in gambling has been arrested on charges of owning an online gambling network and its payment system. Police have confiscated assets worth more than 400 million baht.

Narote Piriyarangsan, 33, was arrested following crackdowns at three locations across the capital, said Pol Maj Gen Athip Pongsiwapai, commander of the police Technology Crime Suppression Division (TCSD).

Mr Narote’s father, Sangsit Piriyarangsan, is an economist who has published papers and books on corruption and gambling. He was among the appointed senators who were studying the government’s plan to legalise casino gaming before their term expired.

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 operating an online gambling website and for money laundering.

During the raid, police confiscated two desktop computers, one laptop computer, 14 mobile phones, 21 bank passbooks, 53 ATM cards, and four high-end cars — a Ferrari 926 GTS, an Aston Martin, a Lexus and a Subaru — 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 AskMePay system. Players scanned the QR code of VPay and the QR code of Heng Online 888 Company or Heng Pay Company.

Police also found payments made via QR code scans were transferred to the account of Heng Pay Co and then to the gambling website’s mule accounts via AskMePay, which did not involve banks’ facial recognition scanning. An investigation revealed a monthly turnover of about 5 billion baht.

Investigators said the website had been operating 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 Co. After gathering evidence, police later sought arrest warrants for 14 suspects.