Taiwan’s Supreme Court has jailed three men who used a Bangkok property project to run an illegal investment scheme. The court rejected their final appeal on Tuesday (21 July) and brought their case to a close.
The men worked for a Taiwanese firm, Blue Ocean. The company sold investments in a Bangkok riverside development, The Harbour View Residences (HVR), and marketed it as a project on the Chao Phraya River.
Blue Ocean promised investors fixed returns of about 6% a year. It also told them they would get their money back in full when the term ended, and offered a choice of a six-year or 12-year plan.
Between 2016 and 2018, Blue Ocean took about 522 million baht from 78 investors, according to Taiwanese media. The company held sales events and flew potential buyers to Bangkok to view the site. It paid interest for the first year only, then stopped. The victims then went to the police.
Twelve years for the chief executive
Prosecutors charged the men under Taiwan’s Banking Act for taking public money without a licence.
Chief executive Li Chin-lun received the heaviest sentence at 12 years. Chairman Liu Wei-ting received 10 years and six months. A third man, legal staffer Huang Yao-cheng, received 3 years and 10 months.
The case ran through three levels of court. Kaohsiung District Court handed down the first sentences. The High Court’s Kaohsiung branch upheld the two main terms in August 2025 but cut Huang’s sentence from five years to 3 years and 10 months, ruling that he played a smaller role. The Supreme Court then rejected the final appeal and made all three sentences final.
A married couple, Li Chen Miao-yin and her husband Li Chang-an, set up the scheme. They ran a linked company in Thailand, Thailand Blue Ocean.
The pair fled to Thailand in 2019, and Taiwan placed them on its wanted list in 2021. Thai and Taiwanese police later worked together to track them down and arrested the wife in Thailand in 2024. Her case is still going through the courts.
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