SONGKHLA – MBI Group founder Tedy Teow Wooi Huat was called in for questioning by the Thai police after they raided his business empire headquarters in the town of Danok in southern Thailand yesterday.
Teow is being accused of money laundering the proceeds from an online gambling venture he had set up in the border township.
MBI has assets in Danok, a once fast-growing border township, whose economic fortunes turned turtle during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which affected both Malaysia and Thailand, as well as their cross-border tourism and trade.
Thai media have reported that the authorities there raided two MBI hotels in Danok before they summoned Teow to the district police headquarters for questioning.
It remains unverifiable if Teow remains under remand or if he was allowed police bail.
The Bangkok Post reported that he was arrested for allegedly laundering money from online gambling in Thailand.
It quoted Surachate Hakparn, assistant to the national police chief, as saying that Teow was charged with laundering money in connection with online gambling in southern Thailand.
The arrest came after investigators reviewed evidence from crackdowns on online gambling dens in Songkhla, Nakhon Si Thammarat and other southern provinces and found links to him, it added.
It noted that the Penang-born entrepreneur built a business empire from elaborate investment schemes with nationals from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Macau.
MBI Group operates an entertainment complex, including a resort, on a sprawling site at Danok.
During the height of its expansion, MBI and its associates owned several hotels in Penang.
It was developing a master city housing project at Kulim DesaKu when Covid-19 struck. MBI joined many other companies in incurring significant losses from their enterprises, particularly in the tourism sector.
It began to lay off some workers from its hotels here.
According to a report last year in the South China Morning Post, Teow is wanted in connection with a money laundering scam in Macau.
The investments were filtered through a series of accounts before eventually being used to purchase high-end property in Malaysia and Thailand and to invest in cryptocurrency.
During the height of their success, Teow had many success tales of pioneering investors who earned a robust amount of returns from their innovative approach to investing.
Some investors went on to open restaurants and some bought assets from luxurious homes to vehicles on a fast-track basis due to a healthy cash flow margin.
Pundits describe the investments as a form of the infamous Ponzi scheme, which is a fraud of paying existing investors with money earned from deposits of new investors.
The Vibes has reached out to Thai police and the Royal Malaysian Consulate here to seek more updates on the apparent arrest of Teow. – The Vibes, July 23, 2022
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