Frenchman faces Koh Samui nominee business claims

1 minute ago, Sigmund said:

How about using all the manpower to hunt down all the drug mafia ? Oh but sorry...they are mainly locals...

Seriously? You actually think that because the police are investigating this case they cannot investigate anything else?

5 hours ago, NanLaew said:

So, how come foreigners are still falling for the age-old Thai property ownership scam?

I know.

My first day in Bangkok I met the English speaking gemstone scammer.

And then met some German guy going back home because early because he fell for the same gemstone scam.

Is buying worthless stones not good enough anymore?

And hey, have you noticed that the people who buy condos for "investment" because renting is "throwing your money away"*

Are the same people who throw away a million+ baht buying a new EV car instead of a used Honda CRV? 😄

*False--you get a place to live plus flexibility

1 hour ago, cynic1 said:

In the photo at the beginning in the editorial section, it has a photo of what appears to be a senior immigration officer in a black shirt, shaking hands to a man, which I believe the photo is the Frenchman with nominee legal issues, and the man being the immigration officer.

Yet both are smiling to each other like we can fix this little problem!. Isn't that suspicious?

No, that's not suspicious at all because that's just your imagination.

Looks like Frenchie is as dodgy as a 7 Euro note... enjoy being deported and silly to have risked so much at your age. He should have made himself legit long ago if he wanted to see out his twilight years here.

Edited August 17Aug 17 by Sir Dude

How many times did you hear that quoted? 30+30+30 lease, I have had a few arguments about that over the years with people,

8 hours ago, ChipButty said:

It's time we heard the other side of the story from these Farang villain's and bandits,

What he did was obviously illegal. Weird post.

45 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

How many times did you hear that quoted? 30+30+30 lease, I have had a few arguments about that over the years with people,

The first 30 years is legal. The +30 + 30 is not valid at Thai law. Once again, just more Thai smoke and mirrors to create the illusion of property ownership to foreigners.

8 hours ago, NanLaew said:

So, how come foreigners are still falling for the age-old Thai property ownership scam?

They continue to fall for it because "everyone else is doing it, so it must be fine" and they brought to Thailand their western ideology of "rent is dead money." It's like lambs to the slaughter.

8 hours ago, NanLaew said:

They are, as follows:

Nothing has been said of the lawyer or law company that facilitated this. However, as you suggest, that may be due to the Draconian libel laws that blight this enchanted kingdom.

As for suing the police, when has that ever happened? Typically, they need to be paid to pursue any arrest and prosecution, which is another blight.

I was not looking at suing the police but suing the media for using their names. Again, with this draconian system, it might be interesting

7 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Nonsense. Thai nominee shareholders holders were mentioned in the article and there is no chance that the police would be sued for prosecuting those Thais committing criminal offences.

Again it is not the police but the media hat they may look at suing

9 hours ago, NanLaew said:

So, how come foreigners are still falling for the age-old Thai property ownership scam?

Greed, arrogance and poor comprehension skills

13 hours ago, riverhigh said:

No mention of the Thai law firm or lawyer that must have set up these dodgy French enterprises.

Malheureusement, quelle surprise... c'est dommage.

Agree, but besides the Thai defamation laws they have to show that the law firm was actively involved in setting up the illegal activies and not just provideing avise on setting up corporations. Based on the evidence provided, I have little doubt that the Frenchman is the ring leader and orchestrated every step of the illegal activites. Best to get the ring leader and the house of cards will fold. Fine, jail and deport with life ban.

Most of the time it's the law firm that provides the nominees and the directors of the company. Therefore most of them are engaged in illegal activity and if the authorities are serious about getting to the bottom of this it's only fair the big lawyers get prosecuted too.

But it's possible that they're just going to take the easy route and go after foreigners only. After all they wouldn't want to rock the boat too much, would they?

As noted page 1 this topic, if you want to "go after" the lawyers, if the set-up was more than 10 years ago there could be statutory issues.

6 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Most of the time it's the law firm that provides the nominees and the directors of the company. Therefore most of them are engaged in illegal activity and if the authorities are serious about getting to the bottom of this it's only fair the big lawyers get prosecuted too.

But it's possible that they're just going to take the easy route and go after foreigners only. After all they wouldn't want to rock the boat too much, would they?

Doesn't seems to even be the case if you see that over 8500 out of 12,000 ish on samui alone are in fact foreign, that basically means the entire island economy runs on foreign business operators, the staff they hire, and the revenue they generate for the country.

In any other case, if disagreeing on this part, it would mean very few Thai own almost all instead. In neither case this adds any value to normal Thais, in only threatens their job stability on a already fragile tourism market with flip flop visa decisions (60 days is still unchanged).

It also starts to become at least interesting, to notice that nothing they decide, is published in royal gazette. Anyway, you literally talk about 1 land office, 1 district office, 10-20 lawyers at most, that basically would be behind 75% or more of it all. Yet they not go there.

Then if you actually look up stores that had such visits, many are back open again. If looking up the same company in DBD data ware house, just from that alone with the submitted last years financial reports, anyone knows this is 100% not correct, without needing to see more. Yet again, nothing happens on this end either. And this applies as much to Thai companies / businesses. I thought they need tax revenue? Why they not go after it in the way they should.

You talk businesses that report like 150K or 400K revenue a year or whatever while their rent alone is 50-100K a month. There isn't even a attempt done to make it look as proper black accounting books lol.

It smells as tea money to me, big time. Those that can't pay can be for the official record (and news). Many are news just for optics too. Many of the hotels they raided near a year ago in phangan, that were obvious foreign run entire, are open today, same owners.

Reminds me of 2014-2015, it just changed with now you need to add 1 more staff member or this paper and that paper, and pay also this and that agency or person, and then it was fine again. This entire last 12 months is a 1:1 repeat of 2014-2015, visa's same same.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by sunrisecoconuts

13 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

Doesn't seems to even be the case if you see that over 8500 out of 12,000 ish on samui alone are in fact foreign, that basically means the entire island economy runs on foreign business operators, the staff they hire, and the revenue they generate for the country.

In any other case, if disagreeing on this part, it would mean very few Thai own almost all instead. In neither case this adds any value to normal Thais, in only threatens their job stability on a already fragile tourism market with flip flop visa decisions (60 days is still unchanged).

It also starts to become at least interesting, to notice that nothing they decide, is published in royal gazette. Anyway, you literally talk about 1 land office, 1 district office, 10-20 lawyers at most, that basically would be behind 75% or more of it all. Yet they not go there.

Then if you actually look up stores that had such visits, many are back open again. If looking up the same company in DBD data ware house, just from that alone with the submitted last years financial reports, anyone knows this is 100% not correct, without needing to see more. Yet again, nothing happens on this end either. And this applies as much to Thai companies / businesses. I thought they need tax revenue? Why they not go after it in the way they should.

You talk businesses that report like 150K or 400K revenue a year or whatever while their rent alone is 50-100K a month. There isn't even a attempt done to make it look as proper black accounting books lol.

It smells as tea money to me, big time. Those that can't pay can be for the official record (and news). Many are news just for optics too. Many of the hotels they raided near a year ago in phangan, that were obvious foreign run entire, are open today, same owners.

Reminds me of 2014-2015, it just changed with now you need to add 1 more staff member or this paper and that paper, and pay also this and that agency or person, and then it was fine again. This entire last 12 months is a 1:1 repeat of 2014-2015, visa's same same.

I agree with a lot of what you said but I think you misunderstood. I meant that the Thai Banks were creating fake statements for visas that foreigners were getting from Thai firms, and the same applies to Thai attorneys facilitating the nominee companies and appointing tie nominees on a foreigners behalf.

Just fine them ~5% of the property value annually until they sell the property with a 1 year grace period. No jail time or drawn out legal cases. I know some very intelligent individuals that are now in a bad spot but it was their choice and blaming others is weak.

8 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

They then proceeded to just do business direct with a lawyer, ignoring local areas and people that matter.

Statute could be 10 years. It could be charges that cannot be prosecuted that are more than 5 years old. At any rate, not my problem. Just that "going after the lawyers" may not be so cut & dry as some on here think.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by JerryM

26 minutes ago, JerryM said:

Statute could be 10 years. It could be charges that cannot be prosecuted that are more than 5 years old. At any rate, not my problem. Just that "going after the lawyers" may not be so cut & dry as some on here think.

Yeah a lot bla bla bla but selective prosecution is what this is. They make a lot of noise in the news while reality turns out to be quite a bit different. Same they keep to announce new laws or rules about all types of things yet none of it is approved or published in royal gazette.

Or then more recent the dirty <deleted> <deleted> on that flight, apparently he got his court date, 3 years jail and all, in under a week. Yeah right while in reality it would be not even have happened in Thailand itself, so how to legally figure it out. No real proof apparently either. That is normally a indecency fine of 1000 baht in thailand (i remember a french guy peaking on girls in a hostel getting that).

Edited August 18Aug 18 by sunrisecoconuts

7 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

Most of the time it's the law firm that provides the nominees and the directors of the company. Therefore most of them are engaged in illegal activity and if the authorities are serious about getting to the bottom of this it's only fair the big lawyers get prosecuted too.

But it's possible that they're just going to take the easy route and go after foreigners only. After all they wouldn't want to rock the boat too much, would they?

Agree a lot eadier to prosecute the foreigner than a Thai lawyer with connections.

2 minutes ago, riverhigh said:

Agree a lot eadier to prosecute the foreigner than a Thai lawyer with connections.

They are not after prosecuting anyone, they are after moneys and telling the new kids in town that there is such thing as red tape. Comply? Stay. Not? Close. Other than that, it is pure politics, or ignoring the real problem makers specific, 1 country that causes that.

The only other objective is also political, it is to show they crack down hard, to get higher ratings and get OECD membership or a FT with EU, that has been refused to them since 2013 onwards, due to corruption and more, a coup etc. They are a bit short sighted on that for sure, if they think they can fool observers to not know at least as much as i do too.

None of this has to do with actual improving tax revenue, safety, tourism business in general, jobs for locals etc etc etc. It does opposite. It is the third smack in the face of business owners after 2014-2015, 2019-2020, and now this again in 2025-2026. Every 5 years garbage.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by sunrisecoconuts

42 minutes ago, spidermike007 said:

I agree with a lot of what you said but I think you misunderstood. I meant that the Thai Banks were creating fake statements for visas that foreigners were getting from Thai firms, and the same applies to Thai attorneys facilitating the nominee companies and appointing tie nominees on a foreigners behalf.

I doubt that, visa's are done very easily and mostly in surat thani for all this people such as divers, dj's, alternative older owners and more. It is basically just all crooked paperwork. Banks never make fake statements, at best a corrupt person at the bank assigns a savings accounts to another person, that holds money, same as they did for the visa's and why they needed you to have BKK bank specific. This is why they would never worry 'you ran off with the money' too.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by sunrisecoconuts

On 8/17/2026 at 8:50 AM, NanLaew said:

No mention of the Thai law firm or lawyer that must have set up these dodgy French enterprises.

Malheureusement, quelle surprise... c'est dommage.

Exactly. Thai lawyers and agents.. left alone. That's the hypocrisy of Thailand and so called 'law enforcement "

Just now, asterboy66 said:

Exactly. Thai lawyers and agents.. left alone. That's the hypocrisy of Thailand and so called 'law enforcement "

Well worse is the officials of course, they set the price that lawyers and agents pay, to then be the necessary middle men for hidden bribes. They should clean up their own house first, then make proper new laws, then offer amnesty 1 year, then enforce.

Edited August 18Aug 18 by sunrisecoconuts

12 minutes ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

Yeah a lot bla bla bla but selective prosecution is what this is. They make a lot of noise in the news while reality turns out to be quite a bit different. Same they keep to announce new laws or rules about all types of things yet none of it is approved or published in royal gazette.

Or then more recent the dirty <deleted> <deleted> on that flight, apparently he got his court date, 3 years jail and all, in under a week. Yeah right while in reality it would be not even have happened in Thailand itself, so how to legally figure it out. No real proof apparently either. That is normally a indecency fine of 1000 baht in thailand (i remember a french guy peaking on girls in a hostel getting that).

"Selective prosecutions". Is standard Thailand practice in many situations. And if you're a foreigner you are number 1 on list with financial transactions. Only have to look at the hassle from banks

Edited August 18Aug 18 by asterboy66

23 minutes ago, asterboy66 said:

"Selective prosecutions". Is standard Thailand practice in many situations. And if you're a foreigner you are number 1 on list with financial transactions. Only have to look at the hassle from banks

This topic and most of the others of late similar are dealing with resort-type locations. Avoid them and you can avoid a good deal -- but not all -- of the problems.

2 hours ago, sunrisecoconuts said:

riously? You actually think that because the police are investigating this case they cannot investigate anything else?

No they can't

it's just ridiculous and irrational to suggest that and then double down on It.

14 hours ago, kingstonkid said:

Again it is not the police but the media hat they may look at suing

Again, you really think the media can be successfully sued for reporting criminal cases that are ongoing in court or police investigations?

6 hours ago, Liverpool Lou said:

Again, you really think the media can be successfully sued for reporting criminal cases that are ongoing in court or police investigations?

Successfully, I don't know, but consider how many times a Thai person has sued another Thai person for slander, and you never know.

The truth has very little to do with the charge, it seems.

I am sure you remember the guy who had bad service at a restaurant, and it was verified, but he and I believe the booking company got sued by the restaurant and won.