Transcript of the above video: 

As the title of this video suggests, we are discussing nominee companies having been raided. It's actually a pretty big story here in Thailand, one being the scope of Thai police activities regarding nominee companies and then it actually resulted in the arrest of foreigners. I thought of making this video, I might put up the thumbnail as a Foreigners Behaving Badly video, but I think the bigger news here is what the police are doing than anything that any one foreigner; let's just jump into it.

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from Thai News Room, that is thainewsroom.com, the article is titled: 500 Nominee Companies Uncovered in Krabi Raid. Quoting directly: "KRABI police raided an accounting company in this southern coastal province where they found that this same address was used to register six nominee companies with there being a large, interconnected network that has set up over 500 such companies in three southern provinces, Naewna newspaper said today (April 23). In exposing this nominee firm network in Krabi, Phuket and Surat Thani provinces, the Krabi Police team was joined by some Provincial Immigration Police Officers and Officials from the Provincial Commerce and Employment Offices plus the Revenue Department." Quoting further: "They also arrested an Israeli woman who ran a makeup and nail art teaching company but was actually producing and distributing pornography on the online platform OnlyFans. The raid followed an investigation revealing that this accounting firm in Mueang Krabi district was illegally registering companies for foreigners, using Thai Nationals as nominees to conceal business operations in these three Southern provinces. They also found evidence of numerous instances of assisting foreigners illegally work and reside in Thailand. Furthermore, officials found irregularities on the second floor of the building, which had been arranged as a "ghost office" with non-functional computers placed around to create the illusion of a legitimate office, along with display of over hundred company signs."

Well, some of this, the formalities associated with running a corporation, maintaining one's Business Visas and Work Permits, yeah, there is going to be - I'm not saying contrivance - but the way the formalities have always worked in Thailand, there is some level of corporate address, domiciling stuff like that, it doesn't make me all that uncomfortable. But if you dig into this - and I've looked into it pretty heavily - at the end of the day, what we've discussed in many other videos is if a company is set up and it's just purely pretextual to the point of being a pretense, and the 51% shareholder who is Thai, just has nothing to do with the business whatsoever, you are going to have problems with that. Meanwhile, and I think it's going to be increasingly the case, meanwhile, as we have discussed in other videos, one of the primary concerns of law enforcement is that these corporate structures are utilized as basically front companies to allow foreigners to own land; that is going to be something that there is going to be major enforcement actions against.

And also, as I have discussed in many other videos, Immigration Police as well as other relevant agencies - all that I mentioned in that article - are increasingly concerned about foreigners working illegally in Thailand. There are just a lot of concerns by Thais that I've even talked to at this point where they have said, "yeah, this is getting to be kind of crazy", and again as I have said before, I think we're going to see more enforcement actions like this. It remains to be seen how much more but again I don't think that this summer is - we've got a new Parliament in - I think one of the core concerns of many in Thailand is the inflow of a lot of foreign nationals that quite honestly, we've seen a lot more disruptions than I ever remember seeing. Now other people have said "oh it's just because it wasn't reported before". We've had Twitter for what, 15 years? That has existed. No, there's just more news of this stuff. I objectively have been here 18 years. I don't remember the types of disruptions. It used to be if you heard of like a fight a month happening on the street in Pattaya or something, it would be a news story. Now it seems like a day doesn't go by that you don't hear a couple of stories. Thai Law enforcement is watching this; Immigration is watching this. Again as I have said, they appear to be keen to be proactive in going after this stuff. 

So at the end of the day, and the point of this video is look, if you're going to come to Thailand and you want to work here, you need to do it right, and it needs to be set up correctly so that you're in compliance with Thai Law, lest you find yourself arrested and possibly deported from here in the Kingdom of Thailand.