In Thailand, popular online personality Siapo Po-arnon has been sentenced to 54 years behind bars for running illegal internet gambling sites.
He faced 18 counts of collusion in organizing and promoting online gambling and 25 counts of money laundering. The latter charges accounted for the bulk of his sentence—50 years. The 30-year-old, who reportedly had more than 1.6 million Facebook followers, must serve at least 20 years of his sentence before being eligible for release.
Siapo is one of 21 defendants charged with violating Thailand’s Gambling Act and Money Laundering Act. They allegedly solicited gamblers for websites Siapo owned or was linked to, according to GamblingNews.com.
The Bangkok Post reports that those sites took more than TBH1.76 billion (US$51 million) in bets.
In 2020, Siapo was invited to advise a House panel studying legal gaming in Thailand. Those deliberations came to naught, but in July of this year, a parliamentary committee proposed the development of up to five casino resorts nationwide.
