One of the people who allegedly defrauded a Finnish investor of $24 Million worth of Bitcoin (BTC), has recently been detained in Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok on charges of conspiracy to defraud and money laundering. Has anyone been following this at all? I would be interested to hear a legal perspective, as these charges aren't generally associated with bitcoin
The victim had given 5500 Bitcoin BTC to Mr. Prinya who supposedly did not spend the money on the agreed investments. Instead, Prinya transferred most of the BTC to his family members. His younger brother, famous Thai screen actor Jiratpisit Jaravijit, his father Suwit Jaravijit, his mother Lertchatkamol and his younger sister Supitcha Jaravijit have been accused.
This isn't really anything related to bitcoin at all.
You scam anyone out of a certain amount of money above a threshold that depends on the country you're in, you'd go to jail for it. It doesn't matter whether this scam is conducted with bitcoin or not, even though the means of payment in this case, is indeed, bitcoin.
Anyways, the latest development seems to indeed indicate that they have reached private settlement and that the scammers will not be held accountable for their actions. However, with the irreversible nature of bitcoin, not everyone is going to get lucky like this. Be careful when you get pitched the idea of investing, especially when it's online and you are paying in an irreversible means of payment.
