Transcript of the above video: 

There has been a lot of talk in the news  recently about corporate nominees, the issue of immigration in conjunction with that, and the fact that Thai Immigration or I should say the Thai establishment, now in the form of even the Army, is taking issues associated with nominees and immigration increasingly seriously, has been something we have been talking about at length for a couple of weeks now. That said, I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Pattaya Mail, pattayamail.com, the article is titled: The wake-up call from Koh Phangan: A paradigm shift in Thailand's regulatory enforcement. Quoting directly: "The events of Koh Phangan have shattered the illusion of "Safety in Numbers". The days of relying on the sheer volume of nominee companies to hide from the law are over. As we move further into 2026, Operational Transparency is no longer a luxury that is a prerequisite for survival. Investors must choose. Remain in the shadows and face the rising tide of Regulatory Enforcement, or step into the light of full compliance and secure the longevity of their investments in the Land of Smiles." 

So more to the point with regard to this is, and I hear this stuff a lot, especially regarding work authorization and things, I'll be in a consult with somebody and I'll say, "well you really need to have a Work Permit to do what you are doing." Oh, but if I just", and they play a lot of sort of semantic sophistry rationalization games and say, "well if I do this, that or the other thing, I'm not really working in Thailand, right?" It's like, "No you are". I have discussed this at length in other videos. The definition of work, for example, is very clear. I mean breathing could be considered work, it's very broad. That being said, also in the context of this issue is things like nominees and structuring companies, and people sort of, it is interesting to me because over the years it is very difficult to do my job where I'm consulting people, I'm trying to give them the best advice, but what they really want is for me to just essentially ratify whatever it is that they want to do, and tell them that it's all going to be okay. Well the problem is that from time to time, things like this latest crackdown happen, and when the Army gets involved, and the Prime Minister is going in to do fact finding on it, you know it's serious; they're not messing around here. As I've discussed in other videos, especially in light of the fact they found certain arms caches associated with folks that had sort of these structures set up sort of in front of them in order to obfuscate what they were doing here in Thailand, all of this adds up to a situation wherein law enforcement is not messing around here anymore, and basically, at the end of the day, the whole notion that well everybody does it, it's going to be all right. It's like your mother always said, "if everybody was jumping off a bridge, would you jump too?" Probably not. 

That said, I do understand that there was a time when it was possible to do business in a certain way here in Thailand. Times they are a-changing, for good or ill. I'm not making this video or any of these videos because I like, dislike or feel one way or the other about this, this is just what's happening. And when you are living in a certain place, trying to make a living in a certain place, doing business in a certain place, at a certain point, you just have to adapt to the facts on the ground. So that is where we are at. It remains to be seen exactly how this plays out, so we will certainly be keeping folks updated on this channel as the situation evolves.