The Criminal Court on Wednesday granted bail to actress Savika "Pinky" Chaiyadej, who has been in custody for three months pending prosecution in a huge investment scam that allegedly bilked victims of almost 2.5 billion baht.
The court set bail at 5 million baht and prohibited Savika from leaving Thailand. The 36-year-old actress was ordered to report to the court every month and inform it if she intends to relocate her residence.
According to sources, she would be freed from the Central Women's Correctional Institution on Wednesday night.
Before the bail was granted, her lawyer placed a 5-million-baht cashier's cheque to back the bail request.
The bail decision came after Savika told the court she was merely an investor in the "Forex-3D" Ponzi case. She had eight witnesses to support her defence statement.
The court set the first round of hearing prosecutors' witnesses for Aug 10 next year.
Among 24 defendants, the actress was indicted and denied bail in August on charges of operating the Ponzi scheme that cheated thousands of victims out huge sums of money.
The court was told that from Nov 25, 2015, to Sept 8, 2020, the defendants used Facebook to entice victims to invest in the Forex-3D foreign exchange group, leading 9,824 people to invest a total of 2.49 billion baht.
Forex-3D was run by Apiruk Kothi, 28, who lured victims into investing in foreign currencies with the promise of high returns. He was arrested on Jan 15 last year, after more than a year on the run.
