CityNews – 50-year-old Apichat Chansakulporn, also known as Sia Pieng, (managing director of President Agri Co), has been prosecuted by the Office of the Attorney General on charges of embezzlement.
A provincial court in Samut Prakan yesterday (24th June) convicted the businessman – and alleged friend of ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra – to six years imprisonment. They found him guilty of embezzlement and fraud, for failing to deliver a rice shipment, valued at 200 million Baht, to Iran. He has additionally been fined 12,000 Baht.
Apichat was one of six leading Thai businessmen who were asked to report to the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) last month.
The event unfolded seven years ago in June 2007, when the then Commerce Ministry’s Department of Foreign Trade requested President Agri Trading Co to improve the quality of 20,000 tonnes of white rice which it was due to export to the Islamic Republic of Iran.