Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Grou...

Fraudster Masquerading as Thai Investor

This scam has been referenced here https://dirtyscam.com/reviews/athavudhi-hirunburana/ – it looks to be another alias of the same group.

The scammer is finding start-up companies that are in the fundraising phase, in my case through Angel Investment Network, offering investment and in turn requirement legal work to be done in Thailand in order to have your business registered with the Thai authorities.

The alias used is of Santi Bhirombhakti, who is a well known businessman in Thailand – from a family that is know for investment and its social impact foundations. In that sense it is a reasonable cover story for the scammers.

The scam starts with introductory emails which are all fine and pleasant. Once you have sent over your business plan, ‘Santi’ will give you an investment offer, in my case and those that I have read about, this is a similar hydrid debt-equity finance deal with a 5-6 year tenor.

The quality of English and detail in the emails is very high, as is the understanding of finance. So the scammers are very effective in assuaging any doubts you might have. The person is happy to speak to you on the phone, but will not take a conference call.

If you accept the offer then ‘Santi’ will introduce you to his lawyer and also his business partner. In my case these where called Kai Rung and Pravee. The whole process is very slow, for me it was more than 3 months of correspondence, information exchange and ‘due diligence’.

This is one of the clever aspects of the scam, as this is how you might expect a genuine investor to behave. The financial deal offered is also not absolutely amazing – in fact in my case, we were close to turning it down! Again, that is something which made us believe in the offer.

Eventually, once they have hooked you, they will introduce you to a notary / compliance lawyer whom can do the necessary work to get an investment vehicle set up in Thailand. Various reasons are given for why this is necessary and no single incident raises a red flag on its own. The crux of the scam is that the money paid to the laywer is pocketed by the group.

It is a very long play for modest sums of money, but when they have formed the link between the compliance laywer and the company being scammed, it it very professionally done and it is tempting to ‘throw good money after bad’ believing that the set up is too complex to be a scam. They constantly bring up something else that requires more work and fees until you eventually catch on that you’ve been had.

The scammers, including the laywers, always call from Thai numbers and have all sorts of fake documentation, ranging from fake Santi Bhirombhakti passport, to investment contracts, business project registrations etc.

It’s actually very impressive and has taken me plenty of time to come to terms with how much effort people are willing to put in, to rip off others. Of course in hindsight there are clues that show this is not a genuine investment offer, but I expect many people will fall for this – so please heed this warning!!

Email [email protected] with any questions -this email address has been specifically set up to try to help others to avoid falling for this scam.

Is Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group a legit?

Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group is not running a legit business. They are not aggressive towards customer satisfaction and complaint grievance redressal, Hence 10 consumer[s] submitted negative ratings, and only a few left positive feedback.

Where is Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group located?

Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group is headquarted at Bangkok, Thailand. You can contact Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group by dialing +660983575739 or visit their website www.santiburi-group.com.

How much monetary loss is incurred by Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group’s customers?

According to Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group’s customers, a monetary loss of US $18000 has been reported. The severity of entire incident reports is high.

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10 Reviews on Santi Bhirombhakti / Santiburi Group

  1. Staff that works in the Bhirombhakdi Family Business

    Hi everyone,

    I’m Tiffany and I work at Singha Ventures, the cvc unit of Singha Corporation or in other words the Bhirombhakdi Family.

    Santi Bhirombhakdi is the third-generation head of the Bhirombhakdi family, and serves as president and CEO of Boon Rawd Brewery, one of Thailand’s largest beer corporations.

    However there is someone impersonating Mr. Santi Bhirombhakdi and we confirm this is a scam that we are aware of, and we have been trying to take legal actions against this group of people. They have always shielded themselves by using offshore website and email domains, which mask themselves from local authorities in Thailand.

    Thank you for raising this issue. Please stay away from further conversation with these people, and we appreciate if you can send any correspondence you have with them so that we can collate more information for further proceedings.

    Official emails from Singha/Boonrawd Brewery/ Singha Ventures have to originate from our domains @singha-ventures.com or @boonrawd.co.th only.

    1. This scammer group is shielding inside Singha Group organization.

      This scammer group has internal contact with someone lurking in Singha Group.

  2. Did the same thing to me

    This email address did the same exact thing to me recently. He wanted to do a hybrid debt/equity deal and basically said the same thing that the initial review posted, but would only do a phone call not a video one.

    I also received a similar scam from someone pretending to be Prasert Bunsumpun with the email address [email protected] and I will be writing a separate review of that one shortly as well.

    1. New Mail Address Being Used

      Did our due diligence and they are now using [email protected]. We responded by telling this person or them all correspondences to include attorneys would be handled by our legal team with a non-negotiable video conference. And in addition, we have no intentions of forming anything in Thailand or abroad but of course we’ve ran into this type of scam before.

  3. Same story

    Same story with me …

  4. Same here!

    Same happened to me. I posted our deck on different platforms (including angel investment network) so not sure where this person saw it. The English level is high so you would not think soon at a scam. However I was suspicious because the mail I received was from [email protected] (rather than .com). When I tried to search for http://www.santiburi.co I received a warning sign the the site was not safe. That’s when I decided to do a search and found this post. Thanks!

  5. Scammer Investment

    He is using a different email below with message for info.

    [email protected]. I wish to hear more about the what you are offering if you will share more information about the investment opportunity needs and about security for the sum. So I can understand clearly what you are proposing or offering to investors, a project executive summary or business plan would be particularly helpful. If you so choose you may send your standard NDA as well for signing so we may be free to share information both ways. Let us go through the pitch deck first to be well informed before scheduling a conference call if further interested.

    Although I am based in Bangkok-Thailand I was browsing the internet where I saw your post it got my interest and here we are. My business reputation I believe is public knowledge in Thailand and regions, I also have some major investments in Europe and UK. Even though my major interests lie in real estate/hospitality, energy, manufacturing, fashion retail, beverages and construction, myself have been in support of a good number of startup and tech companies over the years contributing finance, deep industry experience and contacts. This is the reason I have set up the Santiburi Group Holdings as holding company to manage these investments, while I also head our family owned group of companies Singha Corp.

    I am interested to explore how to participate but would need as much information as possible to inform me on the workings of the industry. Please share more information I am open to discussions to see if we can work something out.

    Regards,


    Santi Bhirombhakdi,
    Santiburi Group

  6. Has anyone reported this to police?

    We also had same experience with Santi Group. Any investor email from [email protected] with investment proposals is fake! We have reported to police. Everyone who has submitted info to these scammer must report to Police and Thai Police as well.

  7. Well documented in detail.

  8. Same to me

    Is doing the same thing to us.
    They are doing this very well.
    Hope I see this on time.

  9. I can confirm the report 100%

    I can confirm all of the previous reported information.
    Throughout 2 months of email communication my allert bells were ringing and I was insisting for a video call so that I could verify if “he” is Santi. Instead of the video call I have received a phone call from a suppressed phone number. The voice of the man at the phone was not the voice of a successful business man and the quality of the spoken language was also too bad for a personality like the real Santi. However, after this phone call I insisted to get a selfy with an actual newspaper to prove that he is him. Never heard again from those scam jerks.

  10. So True they tried the same with me and my company!

    Same story with me, they tried this scam on me and my company as well.

Reviews: 10
Reported Loss : 18000 $
Severity : High
Reported by : Anonymous
Views :