Ponzi 'biker girl' hits back, Eve sues, Nui cries over gay son

Bitter Manow on the defensive

Manow

A net idol who sprang to fame after being stood up at her wedding and is now deeply ensnared in the Mae Manee Ponzi scheme denies she is living the high life at public expense and claims she is a victim just like anyone else.

Juthathip “Manow” Nimnual is a kingpin in the Ponzi scheme hatched by her friend, net idol Wantanee “Manee” Tippaveth, but insists she will repay her debtors as best she can. While she has yet to show in public since news of the scam broke last week, Manow claims she is in her home province of Ratchaburi consulting lawyers.

Referring to her ill-fated wedding in July last year when her groom, Pakin Junjerm, then 18, fled rather than front up with the 600,000 dowry demanded, forcing Manow to apologise to guests in a clip which went viral and helped elevate her to net idol status, Manow said she does not want a second brush with fame as a result of her ties to Manee’s ill-fated lending scheme.

However, unlike many victims she has declined to lay a police complaint against Mae Manee, as she is also known, preferring to give her another chance to come up with the money she owes.

Manee, 28, and her boyfriend Metee Chinpa, 20, were arrested in Chon Buri yesterday on warrants issued by the Criminal Court after they allegedly scammed thousands of victims out of their money in a con where damages could reach into the billions of baht. The DSI has taken on the probe as a special case and is treating it with urgency because of the damages involved.

The pair offered returns of 93 per cent on sums invested by key members of the network in the pyramid-like scheme, including Manow who transferred 72 million baht to Manee. The handful of players at the top tier in turn paid a 50 per cent return to their customers, and those players in turn offered a smaller cut and so on with newer players in the scheme helping fund the older ones until Manee stopped paying out on Oct 13.

Manee created a sophisticated persona for herself with social media posts showing her rubbing shoulders with celebrities, launching a cosmetics brand which critics now say was bogus (no one has seen the cosmetics), and investing in a horror-comedy with big-name stars in the cast. Police say she also set up a gold shop peddling fake gold as a front, where she told investors she was pouring their money.

Many damaged parties who have gone to police were stay-at-home mothers pulled in by Facebook ads offering huge returns, some posted by friends and family ensnared in the scheme. Many of these victims have customers under them whose money they sent on to Manee and are themselves the subject of police complaints.

Holding out against the trend to get the law involved, however, is Manow, who in a phone-in interview to a TV show last week said victims were overlooking the role played by their own greed. “You were happy enough to wait for the scheme to pay out before, but now the payments have stopped can’t wait to get your money out,” she sniffed.

Critics, however, say Manow and Manee enjoy the high life including trips to resorts, expensive cars and gold jewellery, according to their social media posts, and wonder if they are still spending victim’s money. Manow admitted she had cosmetic surgery done but said she took the money from a food supplements venture. 

Manee, she said, was originally a customer who helped sell large amounts of stock and who later introduced her to the lending scheme.

While pledging to repay her customers as best she can, Manow suggested she would be most eager to help those who have held back making a police complaint.

“I have 2,000 customers, but only 200 have laid a complaint...Why? They can see that they invested out of greed, and are willing to let me do my duty (in chasing up Manee for repayment),” she said.

However, Manow has pledged to help one victim immediately, after he dramatically slashed his face in a Facebook live session. Heng, as he is known in the media, despaired of getting his 140,000 baht in savings back. He said he had tried contacting Manow but she ignored his messages. Finally, he cut up his face to draw her attention.

While warning other victims against resorting to the same extreme measures, Manow said she was taking out a loan to repay Heng by Tuesday. Other victims on the show, however, including one who claims she is owed more than one billion baht, said Manow had promised to help everyone, not just those who do themselves harm.

Victim Biw, who is owed 230,000 baht, said one of her customers is a mother of two autistic children who invested her husband’s savings without his knowledge and needs the money to pay medical bills. Manow said she would just have to wait like everyone else. “I can’t have everyone slashing their faces to get money...we have to talk first,” she said.

Biw grumbled her friends had chastised her for investing in the scheme. “They say I have a bachelor’s degree...why would I believe in some souped-up, cheap biker girl (“skoi upgrade’’) trying to make good?” she said scathingly, referring to Manow.

Asked if the Manow who cried at the wedding had changed much since that saga, Manow said she had left that old version of herself in the past. “Oh, she died long ago. I have toughened up. No matter what I encounter now, it won’t hurt me,” she told TV host Kanchai “Noom” Kamnerdploy.

Responding to those remarks, celebrity lawyer Decha Kittiwithi-
yanan, also on the show, said Manow would be lucky to escape an arrest warrant herself. “She talks like she is one of the main players, and is wrong to advise victims to avoid the police,” he said.

All in a day’s calumny

Eve

Rocker Sek Losos’s ex-wife Wiphakorn “Kan” Sukpimai is brushing off her mounting legal troubles at the hands of Sek’s former betrothed, saying she has been criticising people in a similar vein for five or six years.

Kan last week turned up at the Criminal Court in Ratchada to deny defamation charges brought by Sek’s former live-in lover, model Apisaya “Eve” Pattanaworasap, whom she likened to a lazy python, living off the rocker’s riches, in social media posts earlier this year.

The case is the second of five defamation suits which Eve and her lawyer Athipat Sakmongkolchai are bringing against Kan, who makes no secret of her dislike for Eve and last August succeeded in evicting her from Sek’s home.

That episode forms the basis of another one of the defamation complaints, after Kan filmed the eviction on Facebook live. Later she took Eve’s remarks from the clip and spliced them into a satirical song she also posted on social media, which like the python remarks and the eviction drama were defamatory and form the basis of another complaint, Mr Athipat said. A former lawyer for Sek, he is also suing Kan after she criticised him as a lawyer for lacking ethics.

Eve said she left Sek’s home months ago but Kan had not stopped criticising her. Kan, she said, had also spurned her side’s offer of conciliation including a public apology.

The court set Aug 4-5 next year to hear witness testimony. Shrugging off her growing legal problems with Eve, Kan said the defamation drama didn’t worry her, as she has been writing similar things on FB for years and had hardly committed a serious crime. The case continues.

Pooh’s gender news shocks

Tuck, Pooh, Nui

Comedian Chukiart “Nui Chernyim” Eamsuk admits he shed tears when his performer son told him he was gay, but is urging parents not to give their children a hard time if they chose a gender which is not of their liking.

Nui, who along with his comedian wife, Siriporn “Tuck” Yooyord, in mid-2017 were criticised for pillorying their son, Pooh, on TV, for being soft like a girl, in a running gag which went back at least a year.

The pair, who appear on TV with their son, used to tease the boy about whether he is a “real man’’ (straight or not), with co-hosts and others joining in. Pooh declared he was set on being straight, but might have been confused in the past.

Nui said Pooh, now 16, no longer has any doubts about his identity and in fact had come to him on a family trip to Phitsunalok to say he was gay. The whole family including Pooh cried.

“At first I wondered how to respond; if my son is not a man, what did I do to make him that way? Later he came and sat in my lap and gave me a hug...he said, ‘Don’t think too much, Dad’. That made me think my son hadn’t done anything wrong; he didn’t harm anyone or cause anyone distress,” Nui said.

Pooh, he said, is growing into a fine young man who is diligent about his studies and keen to make his parents proud. “He stays close to home, doesn’t like getting dressed up, likes the computer, and speaks Chinese, Thai and English,” he said.

“I would like to tell parents of kids who have chosen their gender to keep an open mind. Don’t hit or harm the child, because it’s the same as forcing him out of the house; he will slip through your fingers and could end up a problem for society,” he added.