"Tontin" chief charged with fraud.
Posted: Tue Oct 25, 2016 8:05 am
Khmer Times/Buth Reaksmey Kongkea Tuesday, 25 October 2016
Savings Group Chief Indicted for Fraud
The chief of a “tontin” money saving group was charged yesterday by the Pailin Provincial Court with “fraud” over his alleged involvement in cheating 100,000 baht (about $2,900) from the group’s 100 members before fleeing the province.
Unregulated banking groups such as these, which claim high returns on investments to members of small communities, are widely considered to be de facto pyramid schemes in which those at their heads make off with the majority if not all of their clients’ money.
Colonel Chhom Vanthy, the penal police chief in Pailin province, said that Chhuon Peth, a 32-year-old businessman living in Pailin City’s O-Tavau commune, was arrested in Battambang province on Sunday evening.
Earlier this year, according to Col. Vanthy, Mr. Peth and his wife, Chhorn Srey Pov, were appointed by a group of vendors at Pang Roleum market as chief of the market’s tontin group. After collecting 100,000 baht from members in August, they fled Pailin province.
Savings Group Chief Indicted for Fraud
The chief of a “tontin” money saving group was charged yesterday by the Pailin Provincial Court with “fraud” over his alleged involvement in cheating 100,000 baht (about $2,900) from the group’s 100 members before fleeing the province.
Unregulated banking groups such as these, which claim high returns on investments to members of small communities, are widely considered to be de facto pyramid schemes in which those at their heads make off with the majority if not all of their clients’ money.
Colonel Chhom Vanthy, the penal police chief in Pailin province, said that Chhuon Peth, a 32-year-old businessman living in Pailin City’s O-Tavau commune, was arrested in Battambang province on Sunday evening.
Earlier this year, according to Col. Vanthy, Mr. Peth and his wife, Chhorn Srey Pov, were appointed by a group of vendors at Pang Roleum market as chief of the market’s tontin group. After collecting 100,000 baht from members in August, they fled Pailin province.