Transcript of the above video: 

Yet again another banking update unfortunately. This isn't the best of news I have ever delivered on this channel, but I have got to be honest with you, I mean this reminds me of COVID in terms of this madness, the absolute circular nonsensical totalitarian logic being used as an explanation for it; let's just jump into it. 

I thought of making this video initially after reading actually comments on our channel which I was just going to make a video on and then I read this from the Bangkok Post, the article is titled: DES urges calm amid locked bank accounts, bangkokpost.com. Quoting directly: "The Digital Economy and Society Ministry has opened a special "war room" to urgently address complaints over frozen bank accounts," - as I have said in another video, how about you just stop freezing the bank accounts? You don't need a "war room". By the way, this terminology "war room" - they tried using this during COVID - oh war and all of that and I don't know, it is supposed to galvanize people or something, but like with COVID, what are we at war with? The banks are at war with their own customers? Quoting further: "To urgently address complaints over frozen bank accounts, after a surge of reports from online vendors and individuals who found their funds locked due to suspected links with so-called "mule accounts"." And yet again, it's communal punishment. "Oh there are some bad actors, therefore we are going to shut down everybody." Quoting further: "The move came after the Bank of Thailand, Commercial Banks and law enforcement agencies held urgent talks on Sunday to address growing public concern over the temporary suspension of the accounts." Yeah, as I noted in another video made contemporaneously with this one, everybody remember when Nixon "temporarily" closed the gold window associated with the gold backing of the dollar? Yeah that “temporary” measure never ended. So anybody that truly thinks all this nonsense is going to end up being truly temporary, I have got some bridges to sell you. Quoting further: "Mule accounts" are often opened by unknowing parties to receive transfers from victims of financial fraud." So we are totally upending the banking system here in Thailand, to my mind, without any basis in the rule of law. Where are the warrants for this? Where is any legal authority? Where are the court orders to do this? No, this is just people saying, "no, that is seized because we say so. "Mule accounts" exist therefore we can do this." At least during COVID, they had an Emergency Decree which under the Communicable Diseases Act - at least in theory - there was colour of law and I went through it point by point and noted many of the things, most notably the mask mandate so-called was not covered by the Emergency Decree; they didn't have those powers. But that said at least there was a basis in law. They are just doing this. Where do they have the legal authority to do it? To just say, "oh mule accounts exist, therefore your account is seized." Is there any evidence to suggest my account is a mule account? And I am talking and hearing from people that we are talking about accounts that have been around for a long period of time, not something that was set up last week. If it was "oh, I set up an account last week and I poured 3 million baht into it overnight and they seized it because they want to look at it," that would be one thing. But that is not what we are talking about here. They are seizing people's accounts that have been or what they are calling “temporarily freezing” or whatever, as I will get to here in a moment, their nonsense newspeak on these issues, but we're talking about stuff that, these aren't new accounts, okay? 

Quoting further: "DES Permanent Secretary Wisit Wisitsora-at, Chairman of the meeting, said that the reports which prompted the concerns were not full seizures but temporary suspensions of suspect funds, pending verification." What makes something suspect? Where is the legal authority? Where are the criteria associated with something suspect? This sounds a lot like just arbitrary and capricious, "oh that's suspicious, your funds are now frozen."

I mean this was something I thought was anathema in Thailand. I thought this was a free place that you could bank and move your money around with ease. That's why people came here, including myself, to do business and live here. Quoting further: "This is not an account freeze in the strict legal sense, but a temporary suspension of certain amounts of money suspected to be tied to mule accounts." Based on what? Your suspicion alone, and you are shutting down multiple people's accounts? And when I say a lot, it's not insignificant, we're not talking about a few here. There's enough that enough people are calling into the Government itself that they have set up a “war room” to deal with the response. Quoting further: "Other balances and transactions may remain useable." "May" remain useable. Quoting further: "We urge the public not to panic. The suspension is only temporary and will be lifted once checks confirm no wrongdoing." Well that could be an ongoing thing forever. 

That said, then I received further correspondence in comments on our channel, quoting directly: "Might be time to do another update on the banks. My rank-and-file Thai friends say they are starting to pull their money out of the accounts and not all of the banks/ATMs are giving back their money." Another commenter said, "BK bank account still frozen, day 21." I think they mean “a bank in Bangkok still frozen, day 21”. 

Again, apropos of what? I'm really asking I am really asking this question because I haven't been able to get an answer to this, and I've been asking this. I have been sort of shouting into the abyss for the last couple of weeks now. Where is the legal authority to just seize people's accounts without just cause? I mean on what basis are these accounts being shut down, other than just, "oh we suspect something." It's my understanding, yes Anti-Money Laundering Office in the past would shut people's bank accounts down, but it was apropos of some sort of warrant or court order. It's not just oh we just blanket shut down a bunch of accounts because "mule accounts" exist. Honestly, this is seriously ridiculous. I don't get where are the legal authority for this comes from. That said, I may be missing something, and we will certainly be keeping people updated on this channel as the situation evolves.