Thais crack down on financial crime; Chinese suspects in focus

Thai authorities are prosecuting over 1,000 people, including over 250 Chinese nationals, on suspicion of financial crime including laundering money for online scam centers that have proliferated in the region, police said.

The arrests, part of a long-term campaign against financial crime, are a follow-up to a crackdown on illicit Russian businesses in the resort island of Phuket in May, the chief of the Central Investigation Bureau told a press conference.

“We are prosecuting 442 companies and 1,014 individuals,” said police Lt. Gen. Jirapob Puridej, the chief of the police investigation agency.

Jirapob said Thailand supported legal investors but the police were going after the bosses behind illegal front companies committing financial crime.

“If we find you, we will prosecute you,” Jirapob said. “We will intensify our operations.”

Some of those detained in the sweep were involved with casinos and scam centers that have sprung up in Thailand’s neighbors, often in more lawless parts of Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, police said.

Human rights groups and foreign law enforcement agencies have accused operators of the scam centers, who are often from China, of human trafficking and kidnapping, by luring people with job offers then forcing them to work at defrauding people online through phony investment schemes.

Of the more than 1,000 people being prosecuted, 714 are Thai, 258 Chinese, 21 Malaysians, four Cambodians, four Vietnamese, three Germans, three British, two from Myanmar, two Japanese, and one each from Singapore, the United States and Kazakhstan, police said.

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Deputy Commerce Minister Napinthorn Srisanpang said officials from his ministry worked with police to investigate and search targets across the country – including companies suspected of money laundering, and luxury homes of the accused.

An initial estimate of the cost of the crime was 3.6 billion baht (U.S. $105 million), Napinthorn told reporters, adding the overall damage could not be quantified.

“This destroys a country’s economy,” he said.

Police said they had coordinated their operation with the Chinese embassy.

Business laws are restrictive in Thailand and foreigners cannot own the majority of shares in a venture or operate in certain sectors, such as crypto currencies.

Police said the Chinese suspects exploited legal loopholes, using retirement or student visas to stay in Thailand and employing Thai accounting companies and law firms to work around those loopholes and establish so-called nominee companies to operate.

Auramon Supthaweethum, director of the Department of Business Development, told reporters that in addition to the prosecutions announced on Wednesday, authorities were scrutinizing 26,000 companies, especially those linked to Chinese people, as part of their campaign.

Before COVID-19, Thailand welcomed a record 40 million tourists, with Chinese accounting for more than a quarter of that number, making them a driving force behind the economy.