SONGKHLA: Malaysian businessman, Teow Wooi Huat @ Teddy was arrested in Thailand for alleged money laundering from online gambling activities in the country (Thailand).
Reports in Bangkok Post said he was arrested at the MBI Group headquarters in Dan Nok near the border checkpoint in Sadao district of the southern province yesterday morning.
Teow, 55, was charged with laundering in connection with online gambling in southern Thailand.
Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn, who is the assistant to the police chief, said the arrest came after investigators reviewed evidence from crackdowns on online gambling dens.
The gambling dens were in Songkhla, Nakhon Si Thammarat and other southern provinces where police found links to Teow.
The Malaysian businessman founded MBI Group, which operates an entertainment complex, including a resort, on a 100-rai site at Dan Nok.
His MBI International Sdn Bhd also operates several businesses in Malaysia.
He was initially arrested in 2017 by Malaysian authorities on drug charges. It was unclear what happened to those charges and how he managed to cross into Thailand and live a life of luxury.
In Malaysia, however, Teo is an outlaw celebrity of sorts. He's been dubbed "Jho Low 2" — a reference to the Penang native who masterminded the looting of billions of dollars from the national development fund 1MDB and is still on the run.
Like Low, Teow hails from Penang and likes to mix with celebrities.
According to a report last year in the South China Morning Post, Teow is wanted in connection with a 336-million-ringgit (US$83 million) money-laundering scam in Macau.
Police believe Teow was the mastermind behind a syndicate that tricked people in Macau into investing their money in bogus companies.
The investments were filtered through a series of accounts before eventually being used to purchase high-end property in Malaysia and Thailand and to invest in cryptocurrency, said police.
