Assets worth Bt7 billion seized in rice deal case

The multi-billion-baht assets belong to Siam Indiga Co, Siralai Co and persons related to Apichart Chansakulporn, better known as Sia Pieng, according to Pol Gen Chaiya Siriamphunkul, secretary-general of AMLO.

He said the National Anti-Corruption Commission had ruled that Boonsong and 21 others were guilty of helping the private firms to buy rice from the government’s pledging scheme at a price lower than the domestic price without a competitive bidding process.

Then, these domestic rice transactions were used as bogus GtoG rice deals between Thailand and China. The wrongdoing led to financial damage in excess of Bt20 billion for the Department of Foreign Trade.

According to AMLO, the assets seized by the agency include 51 bank accounts worth a combined Bt921 million and 611 land plots in Bangkok, Lampoon, Phuket, Phang Nga, Ayuthaya and Angthong, worth a combined Bt5.97 billion.

The fake GtoG rice deals were signed during the tenure of Yingluck Shinwatra government which implemented a massive rice-pledging scheme to buy an unlimited quantity of rice from farmers for Bt15,000 per tonne compared to the then-prevailing market price of Bt7,000 to 8,000 per tonne.

Bogus GtoG rice deals were then used to show that the government was able to export a significant amount of rice to reduce its financial burden. It was later found, however, that the deals were in fact domestic rice transactions carried out by Siam Indiga and other private firms.