BANGKOK — Thai police have reported seizing around $20 million in assets from a couple accused of running an adult website, among other online businesses.
Earlier this month, police arrested Thai soap opera actress Yam Thamolphan, her husband Phumphat Prasertwit and an associate on charges of “colluding in disseminating pornographic material, organizing online gambling, conspiring to commit money laundering and colluding in laundering money.”
The Bangkok Post reported that the Criminal Court had denied bail to Thamolphan and her husband, who was described as “a wealthy computer programmer.” According to the same news sources, the couple was alleged to be operating “a major gambling website and a pornographic site.”
Police told the Post that they “spent more than two years investigating the gambling network www.ufa24h.net and the pornographic website hd.star4k.com, and following their respective money trails, which were both linked to Mr Phumphat and his wife.” Both sites are currently offline.
Lt. Gen. Jirabhop Bhuridej, the commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau, told Thai press that the online gambling operation had “more than 40,000 customers with at least 7 million baht (approximately $200,000) worth of transactions moving through its bank accounts every month.”
Police sources have not provided details concerning the pornography charges against the three suspects, or about the now-shuttered site hd.star4k.com.
Tax records for the couple allegedly failed to account for the four houses, 12 luxury cars, 42 million baht (approximately $1.2 million) in cash and many other luxury items found at their homes.
Making, producing, possessing, importing, exporting, or distributing pornography for commercial purposes, for distribution or for public display is a criminal offense in Thailand, punishable by up to three years in prison and a 60,000 baht (approximately $1,700) fine.
A different statute, the Computer Crimes Act, also bans “bringing pornography into a computer system,” and contravention can result in a five-year prison sentence and/or a 100,000 baht (approximately $2,800) fine.
As XBIZ reported, as more Thais have opened OnlyFans accounts to support themselves during the pandemic, legal experts in the Southeast Asian kingdom have recently warned about the uncertain status of the content produced, given the country's notoriously harsh obscenity laws.
Main Image: The arrest of soap opera actress Yam Thamolphan (Photo: Bangkok Police)