Citizenship bust targets 5,000 ‘fake Thais’ in Chiang Mai’s district
CHIANG MAI: Local administrators and migrants were among 20 suspects arrested in this northern province as part of a fake citizenship bust believed to involve about 5,000 “fake Thais” made in just one district.
Deputy Interior Minister Worasit Liangprasit said at Chiang Mai provincial police station that about 200 police and administrative officials made the arrests while raiding the places of suspects in Chai Prakan district on Wednesday morning as they found a network of fake Thai citizenship issuance there.
The deputy minister said corrupt officials and Thai house owners were allegedly behind the issuance of Category 0 ID cards for migrants who could then claim to be Thai-born but have no previous house registration records.
Deputy national police chief Pol Gen Samran Nualma said on the same occasion that the raid was a part of a fake Thai citizenship suppression in which Category 0 Thai ID cards were suspected of being issued in Chai Prakan district for about 5,000 migrants from 2018 to 2022 so that they could technically become Thai nationals.
According to him, detectives have found many irregularities. For example, bogus house registrations were created to support the ID card issuance, fingerprints were incompletely collected to prevent identification verification and official documents were forged.
Police have compiled enough evidence against 35 suspects comprising nine government officials, three Thai house owners and 23 migrants.
In Wednesday’s raid at 35 locations, authorities arrested 20 suspects consisting of a former assistant chief of Chai Prakan district, a sub-district chief, a village headman, eight Thai house owners, who illegally certified migrants as Thai-born, and nine Myanmar nationals.
The people were suspected of being part of a gang that had illegally made Category 0 ID cards for migrant workers in Chai Prakan district and elsewhere.
“Normally Category 0 ID cards are for Thai people who did not have house registration records. Most cardholders are people living in border areas, displaced people and people in remote areas. The cards are typically issued to include them in the house registration system so that they have fundamental rights like other Thai citizens such as rights to education, employment, medical treatment and complete Thai citizenship,” Pol Gen Samran said.
Narucha Kosacivilize, director-general of the Department of Provincial Administration, said the fake citizenship bust in Chiang Mai had earlier resulted in the Thai nationality revocation of 75 migrants. Investigation proceeded and resulted in evidence against the 23 more migrants.
The suppression would continue as 4,947 more “Thais” were suspected of actually being migrants.
“These 4,947 people are being monitored pending further investigation,” Mr Narucha said.
Source – Bangkok News
