Transcript of the above video:

As the title of this video suggests we are discussing fraudulent documentation associated with bank accounts here in Thailand. There was an article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com it is titled: Russians, Chinese Arrested in Pattaya, Bangkok. Quoting directly: "Police have arrested two Russians on charges of providing fraudulent information to support applications for Permanent Residence in Thailand."  That was from Bangkok Post and then this got more detailed. This was from thaivisa.com, the article is titled: Visa Extension Fraudsters: Further Details Emerge as Thai Police go after Russian Retirees who used Service. Apparently they are quoting and translating, many thanks to thaivisa.com out there, from INN News, so quoting directly from Thai Visa's English version: "The Thai Police are going after Russians who used a fraudulent service provided by two compatriots to show they had money in the bank for Visa extensions when they had none." Quoting further: "In this sense, they would have the money for the extensions but would want to hide their activities and details notes Thai Visa." That is Thai Visa’s commentary over there.

What I thought was even interesting is this is serious stuff here. The fraudulent Immigration documentation is not something you want to mess around with. In the past, there were folks that took a very cavalier attitude to documentation they presented to Thai Immigration and not a good attitude to take. But this was interesting. "Interestingly, the matter was announced not by Immigration but by a higher ranked man - Inspector General of the Thai Police Visanu Prasatthong-osoth indicating that the breadth of the subsequent investigation will be wide." So again, exact ramifications, I may even do another video on that topic but this video is talking about Retirement Visas specifically. There are requirements that one either show income or a certain balance of a certain amount in order to get one's Visa renewed or a new Visa or converted. For this reason, folks need to be really careful when they are dealing with this kind of documentation, careful is the wrong word, don't provide fraudulent stuff is probably the best word. Subsequent to that, also make sure you are telling the truth and make sure you are providing real documents. 

Obviously, I doubt anybody watching this channel is going around just providing oodles of fraudulent documentation to Thai Immigration, I don't mean to seem that way. What I want to get across is that this specifically seemed to pertain to retirees and I am not trying to scare anybody; I get accused of that oftentimes in the comments. It is not my purpose. My purpose is to provide insight. My purpose is people to put things at the back of their mind. This pertained to retirement banking documentation; it is not prudent to presume that they are only going to focus on one particular subset of people regarding this. I remember when we saw the sham marriages issue. This came up, I think it was a year or two ago where there was a subset of people that had been procuring sham marriages. It even went so far as some of them were actually registered fraudulently and they were using those to maintain Visa status in Thailand. A lot of people commented at the time and people that I saw when I was talking to them about that they said "oh there is nothing going to come of that in a general sense." Well no, it actually had a tremendous impact over the course of about that forthcoming year. It had a tremendous impact over the processing of Marriage Visas generally. I think we could see the same thing where there is a general tightening up or an intensifying of scrutiny on documentation regarding retirees and their finances especially with respect to extension of status here in the Kingdom of Thailand. Now that is not a foregone conclusion but not an illogical inference either so we will keep you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.