Malaysian businessman, Teow Wooi Huat @ Teddy has been arrested by the Thai police for allegedly engaging in money laundering activities through online gambling in the country’s south.
According to Bangkok Post, Teddy was arrested at the MBI Group headquarters in Dan Nok near the border checkpoint in Sadao district in the southern province early Friday morning (22 July).
Pol Lt Gen Surachate Hakparn, who is the assistant to the Thai police chief, said the arrest came after investigators reviewed evidence from crackdowns on online gambling dens.
The businessman is the founder of the MBI Group, which operates an entertainment complex, including a resort, at 100-rai in Dan Nok.
It was reported that MBI International Sdn Bhd also operated several businesses in Malaysia.
Teddy was initially arrested by the Malaysian authorities on drug charges in 2017. However, it wasn’t clear what happened to those charges and how he managed to cross into Thailand and live a lavish lifestyle there.
However, the local police have been hunting for Teddy again since 2021 over a Macau scam syndicate.
Meanwhile, in Malaysia, Teddy is regarded as ‘Jho Low 2’ — a reference to the Penang native who is the mastermind behind the multi-billion scandal of the national development fund 1MDB and is still on the run.
Like Jho Low, Teddy comes from Penang and is known to often mix with celebrities and even a former top cop.
According to a report by SCMP last year, Teddy is wanted over a connection with a RM336 million money-laundering scam in Macau.
The police believed that Teddy was the mastermind behind a syndicate that tricked people in Macau into investing their money in bogus companies.
The investments then passed through several layering activities before being used to purchase luxury high-end property in Malaysia and Thailand and to invest in cryptocurrency.
In October 2019, his company also made headlines in Malaysia when several Chinese nationals rallied outside the embassy in Kuala Lumpur, claiming they had lost their life savings to the firm.
