Malaysian man arrested in Thailand for laundering gambling money
Luck may have run out for a rich Malaysian businessman who allegedly laundered money from online gambling as police picked him up in Sadao in the Deep South Thai province of Songkhla. Teow Wooi Huat also known as Tedy or Jho Low 2, is accused of laundering money connected to online gambling in Thailand and is also wanted in Macau for his alleged part in an US$83 million scam.
Police took the 55 year old Malaysian man into custody yesterday morning at his MBI Group headquarters at Dan Nok, not far from the Sadao border checkpoint where thousands cross between Thailand and Malaysia each day. Police had been investigating leads in online gambling busts and found several led back to the Malaysian tycoon.
The assistant to the national police chief said that Tedy had been connected to online gambling dens operating in the south of Thailand including busts in Songkhla and Nakhon Si Thammarat, with evidence all pointing back to him.
Tedy somehow managed to enter Thailand and live a wealthy lifestyle at the helm of this entertainment complex despite having been arrested in Malaysia in 2017 on drug charges, with the details of his arrest and release being hazy. Now MBI International operates on a multinational level with several businesses running in Malaysia as well as the MBI Group in Thailand which has a 100-rai entertainment complex near the border with an attached resort.
In his native country, the Malaysian businessman is viewed as a renegade star, flaunting around his home town of Penang with other celebrities. His nickname Jho Low 2 is in reference to another criminal still on the run and elevated to celebrity status after fleecing 1MDB, a national development fund, out of billions of dollars.
Aside from the bust yesterday in connection to the Thai gambling money laundering, Tedy is still wanted in Macau for another money laundering scam where it is alleged that he was involved in convincing people to invest in fake companies and then rerouting the money through multiple accounts into crypto and luxury properties in Thailand and Malaysia.
SOURCE: Bangkok Post
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