Fugitive Taiwanese real estate mogul arrested by Thai police

Bangkok, March 27 (CNA) A fugitive real estate mogul wanted for allegedly defrauding investors out of NT$500 million (US$15.62 million) has been arrested in Thailand, according to Taiwan's Ministry of Justice (MOJ).

The MOJ said Wednesday that Lee Chen Miao-yin (李陳妙音), who has been charged by prosecutors with violations of the Banking Act, was detained by Thai police the previous day.

Lee Chen was indicted for her involvement, along with husband Lee Chang-an (李長安) and co-conspirators Liu Wei-ting (劉威廷) and Rich Lee (李進倫), in Harbour View Residences, a 456-unit hotel and condominium development project in Bangkok.

According to the Ministry of Justice (MOJ), the quartet used Blue Ocean Realty Co., a company established by Liu and Rich Lee in Taipei in 2013, to illegally accept deposits without registering as a bank.

The MOJ said that Blue Ocean Realty Co. and a sister company in Thailand began to solicit funds for the Bangkok development project by promising investors annual returns of 4-6.5 percent.

The MOJ added that from October 2016 to October 2018, the group recruited 88 people to invest in the project and the total deposits received illegally amounted to 608 million baht.

Investors later reported the company to the police after it stopped paying the promised returns, the MOJ said.

Lee Chen serves as the chairman of the company in Thailand, and Rich Lee and Liu are members of the board of directors.

In December 2023, the Kaohsiung District Court sentenced Rich Lee to 12 years in prison, while handing down a 10-year-and-a-half-year sentence to Liu for violating the Banking Act by illegally receiving deposits. Both sentences are subject to appeal.