Democrat party deputy leader and former finance minister Korn Chatikavanij claimed on Wednesday that one of Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul’s former ministers is one 26 people implicated in scam operators, as well as two firms, targeted for sanctions by the US Congress.
In his Facebook post, he claimed that, within the next few hours, the chairman of House the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee, Brian Mast, and chairman of the Select Committee on China, John Moolenaar, will invoke the Magnitsky Act to impose sanctions on the 26 people and the two firms implicated.
Korn did not disclose the name of the former minister, but claimed that he had previously submitted evidence of suspected irregularities to the Securities Exchange Commission and the Stocks Exchange of Thailand for investigation, but there was no response until other countries, whose people became victims of the scam gangs, lost their patience and decided to take decisive action.
The letter, addressed to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, from Brian Mast and John Moolenaar, claims that Americans are being scammed online at alarming and increasing rates, due primarily to a network of Chinese transnational criminal organisations based in Southeast Asia.
These criminal syndicates have built industrial-sized compounds devoted to perpetrating complex online scams, including cryptocurrency investment scams known as “pig butchering.” These operations exploit Americans’ goodwill and good intentions through romance cons and other forms of devastating psychological manipulation.
Experts have estimated that profits from the cyber scamming operations amounted to nearly 40% of the combined GDP of the Mekong subregion in 2024.
In the letter, the two chairmen name the individuals and companies targeted for sanctions. Among them are Benjamin Mauerberger, a South African businessman who used to reside in Thailand, and Vorapak Tanyawong, a former deputy finance minister.
