Bangkok, Feb. 19: A giant ruby reportedly used as collateral for a railway project in Laos and suspected of going missing from a deposit box in a Thai bank is still in the box, the ruby's owner said yesterday.
Pol Maj-General Niyom Krairat, the owner, said he knew nothing about news reports that the 2.18-kilogram ruby had been lodged as collateral with the Laotian government by Singapore-based UPF International as part of a deal to build a railway from Vientiane to Luang Prabang province.
"I bought the ruby from a Burmese gem trader in Tak province in 1994 at a price of more than Bt10 million. I paid the correct taxes for this gem. One day, a Laotian, Khamphanh Panyawong, approached me and offered to sell it to a foreign company," said the former deputy police commissioner of the Fourth Region.
The uncut ruby, known as the Chaiyo Ruby, was then estimated by an expert to be worth about Bt420 million, he said.
Khamphanh later told him that a woman, Malinee or Oy, representing a Singaporean company was interested in buying the ruby, so he appointed Khamphanh to act as his agent, Niyom said.
However Khamphanh could not deliver the deposit money by the set date, so I cancelled the sale, he said. Niyom said he deposited the ruby in the headquarters of the Siam Commercial Bank.
"But when I learnt that Khamphanh tried to falsify ownership documents to the deposit box, I alerted the bank and the police. I am now sure that the ruby is still in the deposit box," he said.
However UPF International (Singapore) filed a different account with the Thai Embassy in Singapore, which was published in the Straits Times. The company alleged that the ruby went missing and the loss would cost it millions of US dollars as the ruby was used as a guarantee for a Bt9.4-billion railway project.
According to the company, Khamphanh claimed that he was authorised by the Laotian government to sign a contract with the company and use the gem as collateral.
The company showed the Straits Times a memorandum of understanding between the company and Khampanh signed in 2001.
However in Bangkok, the Lao ambassador to Thailand Hiem Phommachanh said that his government had not yet granted a concession for the railway project.
Hiem said Khamphanh was a former diplomat at the Laos Embassy in Bangkok but he was not authorised to sign any contracts with private companies.
"We did not get the $500,000 deposit as claimed and it is unreasonable for us to offer the ruby for such an investment project," he said, noting that the news report might have been sparked by personal conflict.The ambassador said authorities in Vientiane planned to build a railway from the Friendship Bridge to the Chinese border as part of the Greater Mekong Subregion scheme but no foreign investors had materialised.
Meanwhile a press release from the Siam Commercial Bank said that it asked the Police Suppression Bureau in December last year to investigate UPF International (Singapore) as it was found to have registered capital of S$100,000 (Bt2.5 million) but paid-up capital of only S$2 (Bt50). The firm was registered on April 14, 2001.
The bank said it was not responsible for any assets held by customers in deposit boxes.
