Charida Ekvitaya Vechinukur
Associated Press
BANGKOK (AP)-Thai police announced the arrest of the head of a company suspected of defrauding overseas buyers of millions of dollars to buy undelivered medical rubber gloves during the coronavirus pandemic.
The Thai authorities have been fighting the surge in rubber glove fraud, including the sale of substandard and second-hand gloves.
Police Lieutenant General Jirabhob Bhuridej said that Florida-based Rock Fintek filed a lawsuit alleging that Thailand’s Sufficiency Economy City Co. failed to deliver 2 million boxes of nitrile gloves worth $15.5 million and paid a 40% deposit.
He said that two other companies from France and Hong Kong also filed complaints against Sufficiency Economy City Co., which sells SkyMed brand gloves.
He said that Kampee Kampeerayannon, the CEO of the Thai company, was arrested on November 2 for fraud and posting false information on the Internet. Kampee could not be reached on November 3, and his company declined to comment.
In another case, the Office of the Attorney General of Thailand announced that Pipatpon Homjanya, a Thai employee of Paddy the Room Trading Co., was sentenced to four years in prison.
Thai officials said the company has exported millions of substandard gloves to the United States, in some cases second-hand gloves, which were packed in boxes from legitimate glove manufacturers without permission.
According to Thai media reports, Pipatpon was found guilty of producing and trading unqualified medical gloves and medical equipment and using other companies’ trademarks without permission.
Luk-fei Yang Yang, the managing director of Paddy the Room, was identified as Chinese by police and company records. He left Thailand before the prosecutors could formally charge him in court.
The Paddy the Room transaction attracted public attention in May, when an American businessman complained that he was arrested for being deceived by the company.
Louis Ziskin and several associates were arrested on suspicion of detaining a Taiwanese representative of another company, Collections Enterprise. After Paddy the Room’s gloves were proven to be low-level gloves, they were pressured to request a refund, but they were unsuccessful. Collections Enterprise has processed payment for this transaction.
Ziskin denied participating in the alleged detention, and he paid $2.7 million to deliver the gloves to his Los Angeles-based company AirQueen. He filed a complaint with Thai police about Paddy the Room in March.
Police Chief Gilahob said that because the police failed to provide evidence in time to apply for further investigation by the court, Ziskin and his accomplices left Thailand.
