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Published on March 12, 2008

 I'm not telling you that I have stumbled upon the unclaimed legacy of a billionaire in South Africa who perished with his entire family in a plane crash. I'm backed up by indisputable legal documents, and if you listen to me carefully, I promise that we both can buy Liverpool Football Club this summer and will be able to take endless holidays in the Mediterranean in no time.

Make no mistake, it won't be easy, and I need all the help I can get from legal wizards out there. The idea is to outwit one of the most brilliant and shrewdest bunches of financial schemers the world has ever seen. If you want to be a part of "Stoppage Time's Eleven", read on. 

Now, have you read the newspapers over the past two days? Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has categorically denied any involvement with Win Mark and the obscene amount of Shin Corp shares it held until the controversial Temasek takeover. The long-standing denial, which he once made during a TV interview, is now on legal record.

What does that mean?

It means that if he is set free based on that denial, billions of baht worth of Shin Corp stocks held by Win Mark and put into UBS AG Singapore accounts will virtually belong to ghosts.

It means that if we hired the world's best lawyers and did enough homework, we might be able to lay claim to the assets.

It also means, and here's the best part, that if we could trace the money from the sale of Win Mark-owned shares to Temasek to Thaksin, we could even label a thief.

It won't be easy, but there must be a way. His denial presents us with numerous possibilities. Most of all, it is unequivocal: "I and my spouse were neither shareholders nor executives of Win Mark. And I did not own any more Shin Corp shares besides those I transferred to Ample Rich Investment and some relatives. If Win Mark possessed Shin Corp shares, it's Win Mark's business, as Shin Corp shares had been available to buyers on the stock market."

What he said next is crucial. The denial seeks to discredit the junta-installed investigators' claim that he and his wife retained the power to authorise transactions of Shin Corp shares in the UBS accounts.

"It's claimed that there's a document showing I and my spouse were authorised to transfer the assets, but there is no evidence provided by the investigators to support this, so I can't explain at this stage. (However,) I don't believe such a document exists. ..."

Of course, such a document can't exist, as it would prove beyond doubt that he lied to the court and violated the 1997 Constitution that prohibited those in power from holding interests in companies that have any kind of busines with the state.

Let's recap this. Thaksin has legally denied having any involvement with Win Mark and Shin Corp shares in UBS accounts. Assuming that the investigators were also telling the truth (about Thaksin being the ultimate signatory for the UBS Shin Corp accounts), we can only conclude that someone had impersonated Thaksin in acquiring the authority to transfer shares and later exercising that power.

Which makes the income generated by the share transfers up for grabs.

Now, instead of saying "You are a big liar", the investigators or prosecutors can tell Thaksin, "We believe you, but from the evidence that we have, a Thaksin impersonator had stolen from accounts that you proclaimed you have nothing to do with. So, if you happened to have received some money generated by transactions involving those accounts, could you be kind enough to return it."

If both the junta-installed investigators and Thaksin were telling the truth, it can only mean that any UBS transaction authorised by this "impersonator" was illegal. Like Thaksin said in his official denial, Shin Corp portfolios in the hands of UBS could belong to a lot of customers who bought the shares on the stock market.

Which brings me back to my original point: Thaksin has nothing to do with the money and his "impersonator" surely won't dare re-surface. The UBS-Temasek transactions, if authorised by a "Thaksin" or a "Pojaman", have to be illegal and the money has to be there somewhere, without anyone legally possessing it.

This is as far as my little brain can go, so how we can get our hands on it is up to the other members of "Stoppage Time's Eleven" to figure out.

tulsathit@nationgroup.com

Tulsathit Taptim

The Nation