Thai firms see 190-mln-USD wealth confiscated over rice dealing scams

Two Thai rice trading firms had their wealth confiscated on Friday in the face of corruption charges involving a previous government's rice subsidy program.

The Anti-Money-Laundering Office (AMLO) announced that an estimated seven billion baht (about 190 million U.S. dollars) in assets of two rice firms, namely Siam Indica Group and Siralai Co., has been confiscated by the agency due to their alleged scams in which they had bought large volumes of low-priced rice from the Foreign Trade Department and doctored documentation to falsely make it look as if it were bound for export under government-to-government dealings.

The rice had not been exported to China as falsely claimed by the firms but ended up in the hands of other profit-sepculating rice traders who had then managed to make huge profits from its sales at increased prices, according to the AMLO.

The Foreign Trade Department, which sold the rice to the firms, had earlier bought the rice directly from farmers for an average of 500 U.S. dollars per ton under the controversial rice subsidy program implemented over the last several years by the government under former leader Yingluck Shinawatra.

In another development, Yingluck appeared in court on Friday to attend a hearing for alleged involvement in the corruption charges over the department's rice dealings.

She had categorically denied all accusations pertaining to her "populist" rice program and dismissed allegations that she had deliberately neglected the duty to see to it that the program would have been carried out in transparent, uncorrupt fashion.

Nevertheless, the rice program already cost her a five-year ban from politics since last year when the National Legislative Assembly, which seized power in the 2014 coup, ruled her guilty of the duty-negligence charges. Enditem