Paying for the past
Sendit Tech, a joint venture bankrolled by US and Indonesian investors in Thailand, is paying for the legacy left behind by former executives.
This comes despite the new board firing two executives and self-reporting their illegal multi-million-baht gambling transactions to Thai authorities. The co-investors acquired a Thai payment gateway company in mid-2022, but only installed a new management team late 2023, and then rebranded to Sendit in February.
Sendit board member Tom Kruesopon and his attorney held a press conference Monday to disclose evidence of the former executives allowing hundreds of illegal online gambling platforms to use his firm’s payment gateway system.
over $270m in annual circulation
According to Nation Thailand, Kruesopon said the shady financial activity amounted to over THB10bn ($270m) in annual circulation. Kruesopon and his attorney, Witoon Keng-ngarn, held the press release to highlight the firm’s seemingly undeserved crisis.
An unfair ruling
The current crisis Sendit is experiencing stems, according to Kruesopon, from a lawsuit the two shady ex-executives brought against the firm for their dismissal.
While a Thai court accepted that the pair had facilitated unlawful activity, it ordered Sendit Tech to honor THB300m ($9m) in contractual bonuses. Sendit submitted an appeal against this penalty, upon which Kruesopon claimed he received calls from more than ten influential figures, including a well-known military aide-de-camp, urging him to drop the case and pay the settlement.
I told the officer who called me, ‘I’m not playing this game.’”
“They questioned why I was supporting foreigners. I told the officer who called me, ‘I’m not playing this game.’”
Witoon subsequently revealed Sendit’s crisis, namely that customer funds totalling around US$8m were frozen on April 30 following an “unusually rapid order by the Legal Execution Department.”
On Monday, Sendit stated it intends to compile all relevant documents relating to the uncovered illegalities and submit them to the Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau and the Technology Crime Suppression Division for investigation into the gambling-linked activities.
In the meantime, Sendit is appealing to the Legal Execution Department “for fairness regarding the asset freeze”. The freeze has allegedly affected over 10,000 customers, whose accounts were also frozen. Kruesopon stated company funds were used to compensate all the affected customers.
Warning to investors
The Sendit exec also issued a sharp reprimand to Thai authorities.
“If Thai courts rule in favor of the guilty and force foreign investors to pay, who would dare invest in Thailand?” Kruesopon asked.
“The Thai government says it welcomes foreign investment—but when investors are mistreated and have to pay out of fear of the justice system, how can we have confidence?”
The case will no doubt catch the notice of major US casino players, such as MGM Resorts, who are keen to invest in potential integrated resort-casinos in Thailand.
