
Two restaurant owners called Apichart Bowornbancharak and Prapassorn Bawornbanhave been sentenced to 723 years in prison inThailand, after defrauding the public with a seafood promotion.
They both sold vouchers to customers that entitled them to use their seafood buffet at an extremely low price. But they later reneged on the promotions, leading to complaints from hundreds of disgruntled customers.
Up to 20,000 people had purchased$1.6 million worth of vouchers before theLaemgate seafood restaurant was shut down.
They were found guilty on 723 counts on Wednesday and sentenced to 1,446 years in jail each.
They pleaded guilty and their sentences were cut by half to 723 years each. They will in fact only be serving a maximum of 20 years.
Their company, Laemgate Infinite, was also fined 1.8m baht, and the co-owners and the company was ordered to refund 2.5m baht in damages to the victims.
In 2017, a Thai court sentenced a fraudster to more than 13,000 years in prison.
It is not uncommon for those found guilty of fraud in Thailand to be sentenced to such long terms, owing to the number of complaints received.
However, Thai law limits jail time for public fraud to 20 years.