A friend just rang saying he has 30k USD cash in $100 bills on him.

Sonds like he didn't declare it. Customs has given him 2 options :

Loose the lot and get arrested

or

pay a bribe of 30,000b to the Thai Gov Customs Officies at Swampy at the moment who are holding him and the cash.

My Question is, anyone know the real fine? and to plead guilty and get the official fine, I rekon it is prob about 500b.

Currency rules Currency Import regulations:

Local currency: up to THB 50,000.- per person or THB 100,000.- per family holding one passport.
Foreign currencies: unlimited. However, amounts of foreign currency exceeding USD 20,000.- (or equivalent) must be declared to a Customs Officer upon arrival by all travellers. Source

And he has to ask??

I'm pretty sure the official fine is you loose all undeclared money and that is not only for Thailand but for much of the other countries, if not all.

did he get randomly searched? on his person or in luggage?

He has to pay what he's been asked

And he has to ask??

I'm pretty sure the official fine is you loose all undeclared money and that is not only for Thailand but for much of the other countries, if not all.

No, most countries will hold the excess cash at customs until you can prove the origin of the funds.

If I was the friend mentiuoned above, I would just pay the 30k THB.

I wonder how he managed to get thoroughly searched at Thai customs !

Now why would one carry that sort of sum in cash?

Dirty deeds income money or as the seed for a ''business'' venture?

Banks are the ideal conduit for the transferring of large sums of money, however perhaps as the banks are obliged to report large sum transfers the cash carrier may be loth to use the system as questions may not be easily answered regarding the source of the money.

Anyway 30k Thai baht is nothing as a ''commission payment'' to hard working helpful customs officials is it?

My Question is, anyone know the real fine? and to plead guilty and get the official fine, I rekon it is prob about 500b.

I reckon there is no fine usually customs would just confiscate the money, so a 30k bung may not be a bad option in this case, but what is certain it will not be a THB 500 slap on the wrist and give him the cash back

3 % "tax" isn't bad. I'm surprised it isn't 50%.

3 % "tax" isn't bad. I'm surprised it isn't 50%.

Agreed, I think he is lucky that is all they want - has he tried to negotiate?

A salutary warning to anybody else - just declare it. No problems if you do and not as if it is going to get reported back to anybody outside Thailand I would not have thought?

OP - he's risking full confiscation and a court appearance later to try to recover the funds - and the operative word is try. If they will settle for 30,000 baht, pay it and get out.

And I don't know where you get the idea of a 500 baht fine from? Just guessing, are we?

Have seen a number of posts in the Banking section of TVF indicating that, to gain a very minor advantage when exchanging cash, they bring in sums in excess of the $20k limit without making any customs declaration.

Responses to these comments from posters who advocate always sending amounts in excess of the limits via the banking system suggest that obtaining this higher exchange rate is worth it as there is minimal risk of being caught by the customs officers.

Of course, we don't yet know details of how this 'discovery' came about but really can't understand why anyone would take such a chance of losing either some or all of their hard earned money. Unless, just maybe, these are guys who would have problems proving the funds came from a legitimate source.

^ There's an advantage in bringing huge amounts of cash over doing a bank wire transfer, however there's no limit how much you can bring, all you have to do is declare if over the limit, it doesn't cost a satang to declare.

Furthermore, there's no need to prove anything, they don't ask questions like where the money came from and what do you need them for.

Thaivisa rules forbids discussion of illegal activities. Bribes are such an activity.