Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing foreigners who work at "proxy businesses" arrested in Thailand. A couple of things going on here. Before I get to the article we are citing, we are talking about work authorization violations as well as corporate setups which rely on some sort of nominee structure, both of which can be considered illegal here in Thailand if you don't structure things in compliance with Thai Law. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from the Bangkok Post, bangkokpost.com, the article is titled: Time to clean up visas. Quoting directly: "Thai Police and the Ministry of Commerce have arrested many foreign visitors using a Student Visa to stay and work at proxy businesses owned by nationals of their own countries in tourism provinces such as Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket." A couple of things to first of all bear in mind, first off, tourism business is considered a highly restricted occupation in Thailand, and one that authorities are not going to be lax in scrutinizing and enforcing the laws regarding matters pertaining to restriction of foreigners operating in those businesses. That said, quoting further: "Thai PBS reported on April 22 that the underground Visa business in northern border provinces, such as Chiang Rai, involved foreigners paying up to 50,000 baht to obtain Student Visas or extend their visas."

So what's important to point out here for purposes of this video is the thrust of that article gets into something we have talked about where 10,000 Student Visas were recently revoked here in Thailand and the ramifications of that. But also, there are ramifications even in the business world. We here at our firm, we do assist a number of foreign nationals in getting set up with Thai corporate structures of various types. There are many different ways if you will, a million ways to skin a cat as they say but we do also assist with 49/51 set ups, so-called, and there are ways of doing that legitimately wherein the Thai component of that is not considered a nominee because they are actively engaged in activities pertaining to the business, and things are structured in such a way so that the foreign national has proper work authorization in compliance with Thai Law. 

But that said, unfortunately, there are a lot of fly-by-night operations here in Thailand that will oftentimes tell people kind of what they want to hear without putting them into a situation which fully complies with all aspects of Thai rules and regulations pertaining to Work Permits as well as corporate structures here in the Kingdom of Thailand.