Investment terrorists

I have coined a new acronym: Foreign Investment Laundering Loops, or FILL.

On assessing the progress of Thailand’s anti-corruption strategy, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-Ngam points out that “many culprits remain unpunished”. Actually, the surface has barely been scratched.

Former Democrat MP, Wilas Janpithak, believes that executive courses promote connections rather than expertise and in Thailand that can lead to an indirect form of graft. Research by economist Nualnoi Treerat confirms that “friendship will get things done easily in Thai society ... but this may lead to conflicts of interest” when connections are made.

Regulators have previously stated there are loopholes in the system which foreigners can easily exploit.

Consider the following scenario, a little-discussed facet of the Thai corruption labyrinth: Through high-level connections and big-face posturing, corruption-sniffing foreigners infiltrate Thai institutions and corporations. These “respectable” investment terrorists establish internationally looped laundering cells which plan covert business operations, specifically designed to stay under the radar of local and international regulators. They wheedle their way into “the loophole system”, contaminating and feeding off it like slimy cockroaches poking around a sweaty slab of Emmental cheese. The Thai legal system is subtly manipulated and subverted, with both the farang mafia and their Thai associates making “looped” deals with lawmakers and law enforcers alike.

This is infiltration with criminal intent, culminating in large-scale foreign investment laundering. On the local scene, two-faced and hell-bent, these wolves in sheeps’ clothing (or alien scumbags in Thai costume) start to parade as Thais, brag about connections and make public statements that no Thai would ever get away with. Thais embroiled in the criminality from the start maintain silence and continue to reap their rewards; this is the “looper code”. Others, recognising what is taking place, are intimidated, in fear of speaking up or concerned about losing face.

Laid bare, this Thai-jacking, exposed as a hazardous graft-bomb, is of significant potential embarrassment to the Kingdom and a serious obstacle to Thailand’s future economic health and sustainable well-being.

Gone loopy? Got your “FILL”? Too farfetched? Not a bit of it!

JOHN SHEPHERD