According to the Anti-Money Laundering Office (Amlo), which is introducing measures to address the issue, up to 500,000 bank accounts may have been opened as “mule” accounts to aid fraud.
It stated that as of the next month, those who use ATMs to deposit cash will have to provide identification proof so that transactions can be tracked more precisely.
According to Amlo’s assessment, there may be between 200,000 and 500,000 mule accounts out of the 121 million accounts that are now in use countrywide, a spokesman for the company stated on Thursday.
Police Cyber Crime Investigation Bureau and Amlo personnel are searching through accounts they believe may have been set up by proxies for scam groups.
According to him, the agencies have so far tracked down over 10,000 individuals who have opened more than 70,000 mule accounts.
Police investigations into fraud cases where the victims’ money transactions were tracked made identification easy.
The relevant commercial banks received the account information and immediately froze the accounts.
According to Mr. Witthaya, Amlo has been gathering more data on proxy accounts and has discovered that they are growing at a rate of roughly 1,000 each week.
Beginning on November 11, those who deposit cash through an ATM must present identification. The depositor must enter both their mobile phone number and citizenship ID number for each machine deposit up to 30,000 baht. Before starting the transaction, the bank will then send the depositor a one-time password (OTP).
The depositor must supply personal identification number (PIN) information and information about their ATM, debit card, or credit card for a machine deposit of 30,000 to 100,000 baht.
According to Mr. Witthaya, Amlo has frozen and seized more than 9.4 billion baht in assets in cases involving fraud and online gambling over the last 12 months. The majority of cases have been resolved in court, and the state has claimed assets worth 8.8 billion baht.
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