Wrap up iCon scandal

The astonishing speed with which the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB) police arrested 18 key players at iCon Group, an online direct marketing company, including its CEO, and locked them up in remand prisons pending further investigation is commendable.
The Department of Special Investigation (DSI) and the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo) also deserve kudos for their quick response in impounding some of the assets, including a dozen luxury cars and prime land plots in Pathum Thani province, belonging to the company and some of its top executives before they were spirited away.
However, the value of the assets already frozen may represent just a fraction of the accused ill-gotten gains, estimated to be worth billions of baht. These are investment funds from gullible poor investors lured by the sweet talk of wealthy presenters and CEOs. The agencies concerned, such as the DSI and Amlo, should step up their efforts to trace and freeze remaining assets believed to have been converted into cryptocurrencies to be traded overseas.
But a few agencies, such as the Office of the Consumer Protection Board under the Prime Minister’s Office, deserve to be reprimanded for their complete failure to investigate iCon Group with complaints by investors about being cheated by the company dating back to 2021. Some senior office officials were accused of abetting and protecting the company in return for ill-gotten gains.
Not only celebrities, officials, and politicians are linked to the iCon case. Also caught in the middle of the scandal is Phra Medhivajirodom or V Vajiramedhi, a highly respectable Buddhist monk and a famous preacher. A video clip featuring the monk giving a sermon to iCon Group staff and investors was released on social media. In it, he spoke about working hard to get rich and suggested the audience look to the company’s CEO as a role model. The monk reportedly received one million baht in donations for the event.
The controversial clip triggered an online uproar, drawing mixed reactions from supporters and opponents of the monk, with one activist lawyer threatening to file a complaint against him with the police. The drama implicating the revered monk should not have been amplified in the first place if all parties concerned had stayed calm and been fair. The sermon he delivered at iCon Group took place before the scandal emerged, and there was no way for the monk to know that the company may have been engaged in a Ponzi scheme or that its CEO could not be trusted. After all, it is a common practice for monks to accept invitations to bless a company on special occasions.
This dramatic sideshow should not sway the public. Indeed, many businesses are believed to use a similar model to The iCon Group’s. Instead of selling products, these companies recruit members to join direct marketing teams and stock products. The government should focus on tracing this Ponzi scheme to determine how many more such ruses are operating. All parties should end this drama and allow the police, the DSI and Amlo to finish the job of nailing all the perpetrators of the scam for the benefit of the affected investors.