Thai police have widened a nationwide investigation into so-called “pink card” fraud, in which foreign nationals allegedly pay brokers to be added to household registers to access state benefits, with checks now set to stretch back 10 years.
The Royal Thai Police is working with the Department of Provincial Administration (DOPA) and other agencies on three areas of concern: manipulation of civil registration records involving pink cards, false paternity registrations used to obtain Thai nationality, and Thai nominees holding land or businesses for foreign nationals. Pol Lt Gen Noppasin Poolsawat, a Royal Thai Police commissioner, said false paternity cases posed a long-term national security risk, while nominee arrangements threatened economic security. He pointed to a NIDA poll from July 19 that ranked investment through illegal or “grey” businesses as the public’s top concern, followed by nominee landholding and Thai men registering as fathers of foreign children to secure nationality for them, reported The Nation.
Nominee land cases
Investigations into nominee land ownership have moved through seven phases across Koh Pha Ngan, Koh Samui, Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Chon Buri, Chiang Mai and Hua Hin, all involving Thai nominees holding land on behalf of foreign nationals; police have seized 309 plots covering 34.72 hectares, valued at 4.339 billion baht (US$120 million), and begun legal proceedings.
False paternity cases
False paternity inquiries have gone through two phases, the first centred on a hospital in the Thon Buri area leading to 33 arrests, and the second involving a hospital near Rama IX resulting in six arrest warrants and two arrests so far, with the wider inquiry now covering 1,494 suspected cases across eight hospitals; the area remains the hardest to investigate because it requires DNA testing, which police cannot carry out when a foreign mother and child are outside Thailand, and funding for the tests has not yet been allocated, though the DOPA director general has agreed to propose using central budget funds to buy the reagents police need.
Din Daeng pink card case
The pink card investigation traces back to an operation in Wang Noi district, Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, on March 30, which led investigators to Din Daeng, Bangkok, where 44 of 5,726 rooms across 63 buildings were found to have 16 or more registered occupants, including one 30 to 35 square metre room with 64 people registered to it; police obtained arrest warrants for seven people, comprising three state officials, three registered householders and one person accused of giving false testimony, all of whom were arrested and confessed, with Noppasin describing the acceptance of pre-signed documents and registrations processed without householders appearing in person as “corruption by officials.”
Nationwide response
Bangkok’s governor has ordered all 50 district offices to check for unusually high numbers of pink card holders, DOPA has told officials nationwide to review possible corruption involving G prefix, zero prefix, 7 prefix and pink card records, and a separate complaint in Phaya Thai found 111 people registered at a single address without the householder’s knowledge; pink card records are now being reviewed over the past five years, with checks expected to extend as far back as 10 years, and police have appealed for public tips, saying informants’ identities will be protected.
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