Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing issues associated with, well banking in Thailand and whether or not Thais are actually being affected by this as well. I initially thought of making this video after reading a recent email from a viewer. Quoting directly: "I thought you might be interested in this thread on X about Thai people having their bank accounts frozen." Quoting further, and they send us to the thread, and I'll go ahead and quote that in a minute too but hold on. - "It happens when a person wins an online lottery and gets paid by "mule accounts" which results in their own bank account getting frozen. I thought all of this banking scrutiny was just to protect elderly Thais from being scammed. Notice the possible repercussions for a Thai.  No government welfare, losing future benefits, getting banned from all of the banks. But what about other things in the future like purchasing cannabis online. A bank account freeze is a Draconian punishment. Expats need to be a lot more careful about "scans". This effort is not just about scammers or people who set up mule accounts. Please keep me anonymous, I live in Thailand. Enjoy your channel and keep up the good work." Yeah, we'll keep you anonymous. Tip of the hat to you. 

Let's go over here to X, and this is on the handle @scopi_no on X. Quoting directly, and this is in English; it's actually translated over: "I gotta hand it to them -- people playing the lottery through online sites. If they win, they get the money transferred from mule accounts, like they're not even afraid of the funds getting frozen. What the hell drives them to take such a huge risk? Getting frozen isn’t a game; you might end up banned from every bank, cut off from government welfare, losing all future rights and benefits. Even your salary would have to be paid in cash." 

Yeah, all right. Fair enough. I have got to be honest with you, I don't really think the spectre of Thais playing online gambling and receiving money is enough to justify shutting down our accounts; de-banking people, causing people to be unable to just live their lives. This is totalitarianism, and it's emanating from the banks. I don't even really at this point particularly look to blame policy makers other than for the short-sightedness of bringing online things like the OECD which I've discussed in prior videos. President Trump in the United States - which I disagree with him on a lot of things - he was right about getting rid of OECD. It's a direct threat to national sovereignty as his memo on the matter discussed, and we're seeing more and more of this. 

Now again, I do get it that Law Enforcement wants to do what they do, but first of all I always thought the "mule account" thing just sounded off. So now okay what? They're going after people from online gambling through their banking? Again, it's illegal, I get it. But this is exactly the kind of overreach and constant "Mission Creep" if you will, that comes from these type of initiatives. And what happens next? Because we saw during COVID, breathing outside without a mask was considered illegal. So what can't they make illegal and thereby justify de-banking people. That's my problem in all this, and as the title suggests, I've been talking about this primarily in the context of foreign nationals and foreigners in Thailand, but my concern is this is eventually going to hit Thais. Thais are eventually going to be, I mean why do Thais need to put up with this? I thought the point of being Thai was that we don't do these kind of things; we don't add all of this useless rigamarole and overreach when we're doing our own private business. It doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Now again, I understand, if the pretext is "well you're engaged in online gambling, and we're looking into that", that makes some degree of sense, but it starts one place, and it ends up in another, and I'm very concerned especially as we see the developments in the West, that Thailand will further take a page from the West, when in reality it should be the other way around - the West should be taking a page from Thailand - and continue down this road of increased totalitarianism and scrutiny associated with banking. I don't see who it particularly benefits. 

Meanwhile, I have still got scammers that pretend to be this firm that I have to make videos about and things to warn people off. Why isn't law enforcement going after them? Aren't those mule accounts? I've sent you the information, the data on these accounts, and meanwhile nothing seems to happen there, but again people's accounts are getting frozen, all sorts of things. I find it concerning and I'm very hopeful that this gets rolled back because I don't want to see it detrimentally impact Thais in the future.