BANGKOK: The Criminal Court on Thursday (Aug 13) acquitted actress Savika “Pinky” Chaiyadej, her mother and her brother in the multi-billion-baht Forex-3D case, while convicting former scheme executive Apiruk Kothi and four co-defendants.
The ruling imposed prison terms stated at 49,110 years on the five convicted defendants and included a financial order of 4.911 billion baht.
The 24 defendants had faced charges of jointly borrowing money in a scheme amounting to public fraud and offences under the Computer Crime Act.
The 49,110-year figure represents a nominal sentence calculated by adding penalties across thousands of individual counts. The information available did not specify the effective prison term after the application of Thailand’s statutory limit.
In a separate Forex-3D judgement in December 2024, three defendants received nominal sentences of 49,125 years for 9,825 offences, but the Criminal Court capped each term at 20 years under Section 91 of the Criminal Code.
Pinky, mother and brother acquitted
The Criminal Court on Ratchadaphisek Road began reading the judgement at 9am.
Pinky and her lawyer entered the courtroom in advance, reportedly to avoid the group of journalists waiting outside. Corrections Department officers brought her mother, Sarinya Chaiyadej, and her brother, Kittichet, formerly known as Sarayut Chaiyadej, from Bangkok Remand Prison to hear the ruling.
The court acquitted all three.
Pinky, her mother and her brother were among 19 defendants indicted in August 2022. Their case was subsequently combined with an earlier prosecution against Apiruk and four other defendants, bringing the total number of accused in the joint trial to 24.
During earlier court proceedings, Pinky maintained that she had been an investor in Forex-3D but had never invited anyone else to join the scheme or received payments for recruiting new participants.
She was initially denied bail and held at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution. The court granted her temporary release on November 30, 2022, after a 5-million-baht security was posted, imposing conditions that included a ban on leaving Thailand and monthly reporting to the court.
Scheme promised professional trading and guaranteed capital
Prosecutors alleged that between November 24, 2015 and September 8, 2020, the defendants advertised Forex-3D through its website and Facebook pages, inviting the public to invest in online foreign-exchange trading.
The operation also used the fund name “Forex 30”.
Investors were allegedly told that a team of professional traders would invest on their behalf, meaning they needed no knowledge or experience of foreign-exchange markets.
The minimum investment was initially set at US$500, or about 15,000 baht at the time, before being raised to US$2,000, or approximately 50,000 baht.
The scheme allegedly promised that participants could deposit their money and wait for profits or dividends while receiving a 100% guarantee on their principal.
The prosecution stated that 9,842 people invested more than 2.489 billion baht. However, the defendants allegedly did not use the funds to conduct the foreign-exchange trading they had advertised and did not operate a genuine forex business.
Earlier DSI figures put the number of victims at more than 9,800 and estimated losses at over 2.48 billion baht.
DSI investigation began in 2019
The Department of Special Investigation accepted complaints about Forex-3D as special case No. 153/2562 in 2019 after receiving reports from thousands of people who said they had lost money.
Investigators alleged that Apiruk and his associates used the Forex-3D website to attract investors by offering them 60-80% of the profits supposedly generated by foreign-exchange trading.
The DSI obtained an arrest warrant for Apiruk in March 2020 and arrested him at a condominium in Bangkok’s Thonglor area on January 15, 2021. Officers also seized a Lamborghini, bank records, a mobile phone, a luxury watch and other assets.
The Bank of Thailand later confirmed that Forex-3D had not received a Finance Ministry licence to conduct foreign-exchange trading. The central bank warned that individuals and online platforms offering unlicensed forex investment services were operating unlawfully.
The DSI said the operation used existing participants to introduce new investors and offered recruitment incentives alongside claimed monthly and annual returns. Investors were placed into tiers based on the size of their deposits, ranging from a US$2,000 minimum for the lowest class to US$40,000 for the highest.
Wider scandal led to several prosecutions
The Forex-3D investigation produced several separate case files involving operators, recruiters and public figures accused of helping promote the scheme.
In December 2024, the Criminal Court acquitted singer Suteewan “Baitoey” Kunchorn, her former husband Pattanapon “DJ Man” Minthakhin, Singaporean Daryl Cai Yonghui and another defendant in a separate prosecution.
Three other defendants in that case were convicted on 9,825 counts. Their nominal sentences of 49,125 years were reduced to the statutory maximum of 20 years each, and they were ordered to repay approximately 2.478 billion baht to the victims, with interest.
Thursday’s judgement concerned the combined prosecution of Apiruk, Pinky, members of her family and other defendants charged in the earlier case files. - The Nation/ANN
