Chamoy Thipyaso (; ; born 27 November 1940) is a former employee of the Petroleum Authority of Thailand. She is known for receiving the world's longest prison sentence at 141,078 years for her involvement in a

pyramid scheme A pyramid scheme is a business model which, rather than earning money (or providing Return on investment, returns on investments) by sale of legitimate product (business), products to an end consumer, mainly earns money by recruiting new members ...

that defrauded more than 16,000 Thais and is estimated to have been worth between $200 million and $301 million.

Mae Chamoy Fund

In the late 1960s, Chamoy started a

chit fund A chit fund is a type of rotating savings and credit association system practiced in India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and other Asian countries. Chit fund schemes may be organized by financial institutions, or informally among friends, rela ...

called the Mae Chamoy Fund, which was made to look like an oil share with high returns. Due to her connections with the

Royal Thai Air Force The Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) (; ) is the air force of the Kingdom of Thailand. Since its establishment in 1913 as one of the earliest air forces of Asia, the Royal Thai Air Force has engaged in numerous major and minor conflicts. During the ...

and Petroleum Authority of Thailand, the fund was able to sustain itself for a remarkably long time. Her connections to the military were a huge factor in political and business power, and so its apparent military backing made the scheme seem legitimate. The scheme drew in 16,231 clients, and was not shut down until the mid-1980s.

Arrest and prison sentence

The fund had a large number of politically powerful investors from the military and even the Royal Household and as such there were calls for the government to bail out the banks and the chit funds. After discussions with the

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

, the nature of which were not made public, the Mae Chamoy Fund was shut down and Chamoy was arrested. She was held in secret by the air force for several days and her trial was not held until after the losses for the military and royal personnel involved had been recovered. On 27 July 1989, Chamoy and seven accomplices were convicted of

corporate fraud In criminology, corporate crime refers to crimes committed either by a corporation (i.e., a business entity having a separate legal personality from the natural persons that manage its activities), or by individuals acting on behalf of a corpor ...

. She was sentenced to a total of 141,078 years or life imprisonment sentence in prison but Thai law at the time stated that the maximum sentence that could be served for fraud was 20 years. Her sentence was further reduced, twice, and she was released in 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thipyaso, Chamoy White-collar criminals Pyramid and Ponzi schemes Chamoy Thipyaso Living people Prisoners and detainees of Thailand 1940 births Chamoy Thipyaso