Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing land ownership via corporate entities and the fact that this is the focus of Thai Law enforcement with regard to this anti-nominee crackdown that has been happening the past few weeks here in Thailand. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: 21 foreign suspects in Koh Phangan nominee probe in Court. Quoting directly: "Investigators identified 32 businesses suspected of using Thai nominees and obtained 45 arrest warrants for foreign directors linked to the firms. A source said the investigation found that one company, FB Propertys Co, based in Koh Phangan, was operated by Israeli nationals. The company operated a yoga and food business under the name "The Yoga House Koh Phangan." The company, with a registered capital of 5 million Baht, was found to own eight blocks of land totalling about 7.5 rai and worth an estimated 60 million Baht, excluding buildings." Excluding buildings; so wow! Investigators said financial checks showed the registered Thai shareholder lacked the financial capacity to make the investments, which police said clearly indicated illegal nominee business activity." 

Again the main focus of this - some of this is about restricted occupations issues and working illegally, that kind of thing and just generally speaking flouting Thai law regarding various things - but one of the main concerns from law enforcement and frankly the citizenry here, myself included, is foreign nationals using these structures to buy Thai land. I mean I kind of say this all the time as a joke, but it's not a joke, the name is on the door; it's ThaiLand. There are laws and rules against foreigners owning Thai land because the Thais want to keep it for themselves. That's called national sovereignty; they're concerned about this. They should be. Frankly they look, myself too, looks at situations in Western countries where perhaps they don't have this same paradigm and in my opinion, those aren't places that necessarily are in the best condition because they've allowed foreign nationals to come in and just take over effectively via use of land ownership, and the Thais don't want this, on a policy level nor on a law enforcement level. And what's becoming increasingly clear is that the police are both proactive and assiduous when it comes to the issue of foreigners owning property in Thailand, as evidenced again by this latest report that we're seeing. 

So the thing to take away from this video is one, if you want to avail yourself of the benefits of real estate or property in Thailand there are ways to do it; there are other mechanisms, I have discussed them at length. At the same time, being yessed to death, or being willfully ignorant or just flouting relevant Thai law, and just trying to circumvent how things work here, it's not a good idea, and law enforcement is, again they are proactive in going after this. We have also got a government now that is very concerned about these issues. I don't see this going away. If anything, I see more proactivity, I see more law enforcement activity moving forward.