Thai Immigration to Monitor Foreigner’s Bank Accounts

[Undaunted]

Immigration officers learn how to check your Thai account:
https://www.pattayaone.news/thai-immigr ... -accounts/

[Gaybutton]

That article was published July 25. As far as I know, this has not been done, at least not yet.

But if they ever really start doing this, why would anyone complain? Don't you like having your personal affairs and privacy invaded . . . ?

[Undaunted]

That article was published July 25. As far as I know, this has not been done, at least not yet.

How would you know? I think they can do as the please all on a computer and you would never know.

[Up2u]

I would think another government agency would be more appropriate than TI to investigate "money laundering". TI is not going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg as it regards to visa agents.

[Gaybutton]

TI is not going to kill the goose that laid the golden egg as it regards to visa agents.

Maybe you're right. In any case, I never heard of this scheme until Undaunted posted it. I would think if there was anything serious happening with it, people would already be raising hell.

Once again, I'm all for effective dealing with crime, but causing problems for innocent people who have done nothing wrong is not the way to do it. Besides, it's a ridiculous idea in the first place. You would have to be one of the stupidest criminals in existence if you were going to try to hide ill gotten laundered money in a bank account.

I doubt such a scheme is going anywhere.

[Undaunted]

This is the only part of the article that is relevant “Is anybody really comfortable with Thai immigration officers having free and easy access to their bank accounts”

[Jun]

This is the only part of the article that is relevant “Is anybody really comfortable with Thai immigration officers having free and easy access to their bank accounts”

The article does not say they have free and easy access to bank accounts, even for viewing purposes.
The training might be for examining paper statements or pass books, assuming of course that it is not fake news.

Then ultimately, if anyone living in Thailand did lose confidence in the Thai banking system, I suppose the way forward might be to:
1 Keep one bank account with your 800,000 baht in it.
2 Have another bank account that you live off. I have no idea if you have to declare all bank accounts to immigration, but if you do AND it gets to the point where you don't trust them, keep a modest balance and top it up every month.
3 Keep remaining assets in safe countries. For example, Singapore and wherever your home country is. Since I wouldn't be sure that even some of the G7 countries are "safe" on a 30 year time horizon, having accounts in a third country seems wise.

I'm still not reading about anyone here actually leaving Thailand. Mind you, I'm not yet moving to Thailand either, other than for some comfortably long holidays.

[Undaunted]

That quote is directly from the posted article! I often read your comments on existing topics and you appear to have a degree of knowledge about Thailand and as you’ve said you are an occasional visitor I would love to see a topic that you post on your experiences here in L.O.S.

[Gaybutton]

How would you know? I think they can do as the please all on a computer and you would never know.

I don't believe one word in that article. "This week hundreds of officers attended a training seminar in the city designed to show them how to detect what had been described as ‘money laundering.’"

Hundreds of officers? Where did all these officers come from? When did hundreds of immigration officers start working in Pattaya? Which immigration officers would even receive such training? All of them? Somehow I can't figure out why the officers who handle the 90-day address reports would need such training. Where in the article does it say this would even involve some sort of computer technology to hack into people's bank accounts? When did my bank stop automatically sending me text messages and Email every time my account is accessed online?

This is so ridiculous that it's hard to believe anyone would fall for it and actually think it even may be true. If anyone really wants to believe this nonsense, go ahead.

[Jun]

That quote is directly from the posted article! I often read your comments on existing topics and you appear to have a degree of knowledge about Thailand and as you’ve said you are an occasional visitor I would love to see a topic that you post on your experiences here in L.O.S.

Could you quote the part that says they have access to accounts ?
The article says they are being taught how to examine accounts, but it does NOT say how they access the accounts to check the content. So it could be via paper statements in immigration offices when you visit.
If you think there is something with in the article that states they have access to accounts for this checking, please quote it and settle the argument. Obviously I cannot do this, as it's difficult to quote what does not exist.

As an analogy, if I am taught how to fly, it still doesn't mean I get open access to 747s.....
Similarly, being taught how to analyse accounts doesn't mean they have unfettered access to them, or even any electronic access.

As for board contributions, I post occasionally on my visits to Thailand and as you suggest, I probably should do more. However, I'm not entirely sure if posting links to trashy news sites is that much better than my input.