Whale Hunting’s “Ben Smith” story

Whale Hunting has another fascinating instalment in his “Ben Smith” saga. As with our recent postings on this, we are just posting some tidbits and urge readers to subscribe and read the whole post.

There’s plenty about Cambodia and scams – all linked to the current border debacle. Here, we post some bits on Thailand that caught our attention:

… [Benjamin] Mauerberger is a central node in what U.S. officials call the Chinese mafia — a sprawling, decentralized network of criminal organizations that the United States Institute of Peace estimates generates $64 billion annually through cyber-enabled fraud. The Federal Trade Commission believes the true figure, accounting for unreported losses, may approach $200 billion — more than the annual revenues of Ford, Bank of America, or General Motors. The victims are ordinary Americans: retirees, small investors and lonely professionals who fall for fake crypto schemes and romance scams, often losing their life savings. Some have killed themselves.

The money flows to prison-like scam compounds across Southeast Asia, where trafficked workers spend 17-hour days calling cell phone numbers in the U.S., then gets laundered through banks, shell companies, and complicit politicians….

Mauerberger’s infiltration of Thailand’s government — not just police and politicians, but the Prime Minister’s inner circle, army generals, and financial regulators — represents the most complete case of state capture in modern history, and the clearest illustration of why this new enemy is far harder to fight than the American Mafia of the 20th century.

Starting last year, Mauerberger, who also goes by “Ben Smith,” began to act as an unofficial Thai government minister. He bragged to friends in Bangkok that he controlled $4 billion in assets: a $20 million Aman penthouse opposite Trump Tower in New York; a $100 million super yacht called “Wanderlust”; a $80 million Airbus private jet. He showered gifts on Thai politicians — millions of dollars in crypto, luxury cars, financing for political parties — and secretly acquired a controlling stake in a Thai investment bank. One of his key initiatives was an official government blueprint for Thailand’s digital economy, although his name appeared nowhere on the document. On the surface, it was an ambitious plan to make Thailand a leader in crypto. In reality, Mauerberger needed to secure rapid, high-volume conduits to move billions of dollars in illicit cash — and fast….

Mauerberger held no official titles in Thailand, but he wielded real power — confronting cabinet ministers, dictating policy, embedding his people in the regulatory infrastructure….

After years of moderate wealth, Mauerberger itched to enter the big leagues. He was ashamed to still fly commercial, so would charter private planes and not pay the bill, says a person aware of the matter. When he ran out of money, Mauerberger — always charming — persuaded businessman Anutin Charnvirakul, who is now Thailand’s prime minister, to lend him his Embraer private jet. He told those he gave lifts on the aircraft — mainly Asian business people — that the plane was his….

He became close to a Thai senator, but a deal they did together involving a power company led to heavy losses for many elite Thais. At one point, he flew up to northern Thailand to acquire cannabis farms — but the deal went nowhere. He tried and failed to broker a deal to sell Israeli guns and ammunition to Thailand’s military. When the senator faced his own legal troubles for money laundering, Mauerberger told associates he didn’t feel secure in Thailand. It was at this point he rode the wave of Chinese investment in neighboring Cambodia….

Soon after Thaksin Shinawatra returned to Thailand after 15 years in exile, he tapped out a message on WhatsApp, requesting an associate meet Benjamin Mauerberger. The South African was an important ally, Thaksin said….

While in Dubai, where he’d spent most of his exile, Thaksin had gotten to know Mauerberger. The South African was now a major player….

Over his years in Bangkok, Mauerberger had built high-society connections: the chief of the country’s armed forces, a senior police general, the CEO of a Thai bank, and a Thai senator. But his business deals had never really flourished. Now he had the financial muscle to make a difference at the highest level. After Thaksin returned from exile, Mauerberger boasted to numerous people that he was making political donations to help the Shinawatra family come back to power — paying off political parties that would eventually bring Thaksin’s daughter to the premiership. He bragged often that he was meeting with “Dr. T.” One associate says Mauerberger showed him a crypto account containing hundreds of millions of dollars that he claimed belonged to Thaksin. When Paetongtarn Shinawatra became Prime Minister in August 2024 — with her father pulling the strings — Mauerberger was in a powerful position….

In late 2024, Mauerberger secretly negotiated an MOU with Thailand’s Ministry of Digital Economy and Society to develop the country’s crypto sector. The cornerstone of the plan — pushed in public speeches by Thaksin — was a baht stablecoin, an official way to convert cryptocurrency into Thai baht. Mauerberger was accruing incredible powers. The MOU gave him direct control over Thailand’s digital sector, and he brought in KuCoin’s Henry Chen, a Chinese national who had worked for Goldman Sachs, to advise on the stablecoin and other policies.

At the same time, fronts for KuCoin illegally took stakes in Finansia, secretly integrating a crypto exchange with the banking sector – a channel to move stolen crypto into the banking system without oversight. The MOU also allowed Mauerberger to deploy 500 “IT specialists” in Thailand — giving visas to embed his network deep into Thailand’s digital and regulatory infrastructure….

Fronts for Mauerberger also began to buy up stakes in Bangchak, Thailand’s second-largest energy company. The plan, says a person aware of the matter, was for Bangchak to benefit from an agreement between Thaksin and Hun Sen to open up development of oil-and-gas reserves in contested waters in the Gulf of Thailand. It was a dispute over this plan that led Mauerberger to publicly pull rank on Finance Minister Pichai, a former chairman of Bangchak, outside the meeting of Thailand’s cabinet….

This links back to the intro to the story:

This summer, a mysterious South African called Benjamin Mauerberger waited outside a meeting of Thailand’s cabinet. As the cabinet filed out, Mauerberger cornered Finance Minister Pichai Chunhavajira in a private room. Although a foreigner, Mauerberger had become a commanding figure in Thailand’s government and he was enraged that Pichai had dared to block his policy. As the debate got heated, Mauerberger whispered to the minister, with an undercurrent of menace: “I outrank you.”

Mauerberger … also made enemies. In Bangkok, there are many people who claim to have lost money in deals that Mauerberger led. There are many who feel cheated. And there are others who believed Mauerberger held too much power, especially for a foreigner. Among them was Sarath Ratanavadi, the billionaire founder of Gulf Energy and close Thaksin ally, who became angered with Mauerberger’s growing influence — especially his push to control rival energy company Bangchak….

Thinking about Thaksin’s jailing and the earlier deal to bring him back going bad and about the border war may put some of this in an interesting context.