Three Thai siblings pled not guilty to money laundering charges after their family allegedly stole 5000 bitcoins from a Finnish investor.
The Jaravijit family is accused of creating a fake cryptocurrency dubbed Dragon Coin.
The Finnish investor on the wrong end of the fraud case, Aamai Otava Saarimaa, dumped his 5000 bitcoins–worth 797 million baht–into the fake coin and a faux-software company after being lured by the family between June and December 2017.
After the two brothers, their sister, and their parents received Saarimaa’s bitcoins, they promptly cashed out the digital assets and laundered the money through vast real estate investments across Thailand with the help of staff members from three major Thai banks who also face charges.
According to both the Thai government and Thailand criminal attorneys, the country has become seen a massive rise in the number of money laundering operations and other scams facilitated with the use of cryptocurrencies in recent years.
The family returned the stolen funds to the Finnish investor who now states that he doesn’t want to press charges.
Despite that, Thai authorities are moving forward with the case.
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