Thailand Elite Visa.

[wellington]

Dropped this morning: Privilege card loophole lets criminals in front door

We are concentrating on criminals who enter the nation with Thailand Privilege Card Visas, criminals have been known....

Effective steps are required to stop these offenders from abusing the privilege. Information sharing between various parties is one measure.

Before being eligible for the privilege card, a background check on one's financial sources should be required...

1) As far as i was aware, when I did the elite visa (as it was known then) you had a Thai, UK (home nation), Interpol background check, thus if no criminal cases then green-lit.
2) I imagine information sharing will be akin to what the CIB are now doing in the Caribbean -passing the information to the FBI for bg confirmations.
3) Proof of wealth/Financial sources will be interesting as usually. for example someone living in HK but payments outside of HK would be tax free (territorial) so there's no paper-trail (traditional).

One thing is certain they likely will go cocopots soon enough and have a clamp down and target existing innocent people, they like the new AMOL laws as they get a cut of any assets.

Additional: Thailand probes wealthy foreigners for money laundering scheme

 

[mmueller]

Thailand Elite went from like 9k members a few years back to more than 30k this year. It is unsurprising that some serious criminals would join this visa schema.

I read a similar article some years ago about a rape case in Bangkok where the perpetrator was a Thailand Elite member as well. Nothing much ever became of that as far as extra checks on members.

I don't see why they would start to target innocent people all of the sudden, from the article the person arrested was running a call centre scam. Reporting on this type of activity has been circulating frequently in Thai media the last few years, they are really concerned about this because a lot of locals fall victims to these scams as well. They don't just target Chinese mainlanders, even though that has been the primary victim group from what I can tell.

Also "The gang created a fake website on the CIB Facebook page to defraud people of their money." and guess which agency is making the arrest, its CIB, they clearly had to do something about this

 

[JackAlabama]

They do checks, its even written on the certification letter. Seems some can pass these checks more equally than others it seems. What a surprise .

The issue here is "These individuals were found to have operated a fraudulent website on the CIB Facebook page to defraud people and extort money from them." no wonder they are not amused to say the least. I find that really funny.

Id bet its come and gone like everything else after some time and winds blew over.

 

[wellington]

Thailand Elite went from like 9k members a few years back to more than 30k this year. It is unsurprising that some serious criminals would join this visa schema.

I read a similar article some years ago about a rape case in Bangkok where the perpetrator was a Thailand Elite member as well. Nothing much ever became of that as far as extra checks on members.

I don't see why they would start to target innocent people all of the sudden, from the article the person arrested was running a call centre scam. Reporting on this type of activity has been circulating frequently in Thai media the last few years, they are really concerned about this because a lot of locals fall victims to these scams as well. They don't just target Chinese mainlanders, even though that has been the primary victim group from what I can tell.

Also "The gang created a fake website on the CIB Facebook page to defraud people of their money." and guess which agency is making the arrest, its CIB, they clearly had to do something about this

Obviously don't s**t where you sleep...