Johan van Laarhoven, a 55-year-old Dutch national who founded the Grass Company cannabis cafes in Brabant, was jailed for 103 years by the Criminal Court in Bangkok on 10 November 2015 for laundering millions of euros earned through his four cafes in Den Bosch and Tilburg.[1] Because the 43 sentences run concurrently he must serve 20 years.[1] His Thai wife Tukta was jailed for 12 years in the same case.[1]
Thai police had arrested the couple in Thailand in 2014 after the Dutch prosecution, which had been investigating his company since 2011, asked for help and moved to sequester about 24 million euro of property and cash, much of it invested in Thailand.[1][2] Van Laarhoven had moved to Thailand in 2008 after some 30 years in the soft drugs trade and had been imprisoned for over a year under harsh conditions before the verdict.[1][2]
He was convicted of money laundering even though the money came from selling cannabis through a lawful Dutch business: the court treated the proceeds as having a criminal origin because selling cannabis is illegal in Thailand.[2] His lawyers noted he had never been convicted in the Netherlands, where licensed coffeeshop retail is tolerated, and had never faced a drug charge in Thailand itself.[2] They said he would appeal the verdict.[2]
