OneCoin-linked scammer who allegedly fled with 500M baht arrested in Thailand

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A man accused of duping thousands of investors in Thailand with a OneCoin-linked digital currency scam has been arrested. The man is accused of defrauding over 500 million baht ($15 million) from investors whom he promised quick riches.

Mana Jumuang was arrested recently in Bang Khen, a district in the capital of Bangkok, according to Maj Gen Montri Thetkhan, commander of the Crime Suppression Division (CSD). A warrant for his arrest had been issued on December 23 by the Phichit provincial court for colluding in public fraud.

Citing the police commander, the local newspaper Bangkok Post reported that the scam goes back three years to 2018. Mana is alleged to have conspired with Thai and Vietnamese accomplices to swindle investors in Thailand and other neighboring countries. 

His ring of criminals claimed to be made up of elite digital currency traders who would bring in very high returns for their investors. During one of his pitches to investors, he claimed to be able to bring them 400% in returns if they locked up their money with him for just 200 days.

Mana and his co-conspirators also allegedly claimed affiliation with OneCoin, the global scam whose leaders made off with over $4 billion from thousands of investors. They claimed to be running stores to sell goods on a trading platform for OneCoin. Goods on offer included cars, houses, gold, real estate, clothes, cosmetic products, and more.

When the scam started, Mana would pay back some of the earlier investors, with many paid by late-stage investors, in a true Ponzi scheme fashion. However, these payments later stopped and he cut off all communication with his investors. He is reported to have made off with 500 million baht ($15 million). 

Mana had been arrested back in 2019 and brought before a court. He was released on bail and took the opportunity to flee.

Follow CoinGeek’s Crypto Crime Cartel series, which delves into the stream of groups—a from BitMEX to Binance, Bitcoin.com, Blockstream, ShapeShift, Coinbase, Ripple, Ethereum, 
FTX and Tether—who have co-opted the digital asset revolution and turned the industry into a minefield for naïve (and even experienced) players in the market.