Posted by walterbell 19 hours ago
this wasn't a swift action overnight
they could be blocking this many accounts on a yearly basis just from scam reports at the police station
or more which seems to be the case recently, but not overnight
this is bad article
The $10,000 figure originated with the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act[1]. Back then, that was a lot of money.
If it had kept up with plain old vanilla government-reported inflation, the number would be closer to $83,000 today[2].
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[1] https://www.fincen.gov/resources/statutes-and-regulations/ba...
[2] https://www.dollartimes.com/inflation/inflation.php?amount=1...
So many questions...
Update: my Thai friend just wrote me this:
"Not in trouble, it's the Chinese and Russians money laundering. Every Russian has had their accounts suspended, this was about half a year ago, now they are slowly doing the Chinese and Brits too. Vietnam is not much better, also suspending all foreigners accounts until you can prove you have a trc here."
Update2: just saw this on IG… https://www.instagram.com/p/DOZM0ZOkUAy/
They pay a low-income/no-income person a small fee (possibly monthly) to let them borrow their account. Sadly, people who would fall into this are not hard to find in Thailand.
> What sort of KYC was going on?
There are accounts that are grandfathered in and don’t require KYC but have been able to access online banking, etc. Mine is such, and my bank (BAY) is discontinuing that particular loophole at the end of this month. (I'm in Thailand right now to do this KYC, despite having not come back here for the last 6 years.)
Fraud has always been around, but I think a few recent developments have exacerbated the problem. KYC has been relaxed a lot since Covid, so you can open a whole bunch of accounts with just an image of an ID card. Lots of elderly people now have access to mobile banking, so they don't have to visit a physical branch where a clerk can flag suspicious transfer requests.
Bank accounts in South Korea now start with a daily transfer limit of 1 million won (about $700), even lower than the 50k bhat limit that the Thai government has instituted.
KK Park – a vast, heavily guarded complex stretching for 210 hectares (520 acres) along the churning Moei River that forms Myanmar’s border with Thailand.. with its on-site hospital, restaurants, bank and neat lines of villas with manicured lawns, looks more like the campus of a Silicon Valley tech company than what it really is: the frontline of a multibillion-dollar criminal fraud industry fuelled by human trafficking and brutal violence.. Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos have in recent years become havens for transnational crime syndicates running scam centres such as KK Park, which use enslaved workers to run complex online fraud and scamming schemes that generate huge profits.China's Silk Road ends in Sihanoukville Cambodia. If you've ever been there, you've seen the eco-devastation and utter disregard for human life along the entire road.
It is a very confusing way to write the number and no explanation seems to fit, other than "There is a second 'M' to avoid clash with the company name '3M'.". Is that the explanation?
To represent one million in finance, the abbreviation “MM” is widely used. This notation originates from “mille mille,” meaning “thousand thousands” in Latin, equating to one million. This clarity makes “MM” a preferred choice in financial statements and reports."Thousand" is always "k" or "K". "Million" is "M", "MM", "m", "mn", or "mln".
But "mille" means 1000. Specifically, it was the distance covered by 1000 paces from a marching Roman soldier. It's more consistent to measure paces than steps in the face of left/right asymmetries, so it's the unit implied when you just say you're marching 1000.
(ETA: HN title has been re-edited, previously didn't have the "to curb fraud" clause.)
Even if the anti-fraud motif is genuine, that’s a pretty extreme amount of control. Not that it’s in any way strange coming from Thailand. Foreign exchange and capital inflow and outflow are already controlled.
> Assistant [Bank of Thailand] Governor.. acknowledged that current procedures for identifying and freezing suspected “mule accounts” need refinement to prevent harming innocent customers. Many account holders have taken to social media to express frustration...
If you have a better suggestion for an abridged headline then you could share and hopefully the submitter can still update this submission.