Digital Economy Ministry wages war on ‘mule’ bank accounts
Government agencies are preparing to draw up more stringent regulations for new bank accounts, following the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society’s (DE) announcement on Thursday that more than 300,000 mule accounts have been removed since November.
Since the anti-online scam centre known as AOC 1441 was set up in November, more than 300,000 mule accounts have been taken down, DE minister Prasert Jantararuangtong said during the ministry’s meeting on Thursday.
This was made possible by close collaboration with the Bank of Thailand, the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO), and the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Prasert said that tougher measures will be imposed no later than June 1 to prevent wrongdoers from setting up accounts for fraudulent purposes.
He explained his ministry would ensure each account opened would not be used illegally, by mandating that all banks comply with the “Customer Due Diligence (CDD)” approach.
“This doesn’t mean that a person can have only one account but he or she must be able to explain their need [to open an account to a bank] whether it is for business or another purpose,” AMLO’s Deputy Secretary-General, Pol Maj Gen Eakkarak Limsungga, explained.
Eakkarak said that he predicted that the number of mule accounts could be as many as one million, some of which were owned by “influential figures” in communities.
He said that these influential people forced or hired the least well-off to use their ID cards to open new bank accounts for scams.
The money given to others to open an account is around 15,000 baht, he added.
Investigations by the police identified more than 50 bank accounts in the name of a single person.
Other specific measures to redress the issue have yet to be finalised. The move also needs to be greenlighted by the Cabinet.
DE reported that during the Microsoft conference in Bangkok on Wednesday that the company’s chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella had promised to help Thailand in combating online scams by using its AI technology.
Microsoft's decision to set up its first data centre in the Kingdom was also announced at the conference.
