Jun.18, 2010

PHUKET is the money-laundering capital of Thailand, the country's leading authority told Phuket officials yesterday, with the property market a prime mechanism.

The Chairman of the Standing Committee on Prevention of Money Laundering and Drugs of the Senate, MP Wisut Chainaroon, said that drugs were also part of the Phuket mix.

A nationwide system of improved 24-hour checkpoints would be introduced soon with a budget of 57 million baht, he added.

He told a meeting of senior authorities at Provincial Hall in Phuket City that people who bought properties on Phuket sometimes used the deals to launder money.

''Phuket is a great place for people to come to deal with black money or to handle drugs,'' he said. ''They come here and it's easy to pose as a tourist.''

Even criminals in Phuket Prison could get access to drugs, Khun Wisut said.

That suggestion was rejected by Phuket Prison Director, Paisal Suwanraksa, who said the prison did hold at least two well-known drug gang leaders, but that regular urine testing meant that any drug use inside the jail would be quickly exposed.

Vice Governor Treerayut Eamtrakul said that since the major Thachatchai checkpoint had been introduced on the sole road access between Phuket and the mainland, drug smugglers had turned to aircraft flights and boat travel to bring illicit drugs onto the island.

There was no real importation from overseas, simply transfers from other provinces to Phuket, or the other way, he said.

''We don't have the staff to check on boats around the clock, but the system has improved,'' Vice Governor Treerayut said.

''With international investment in property and resorts, it's also difficult to check whether the money is from illegal operations or not. Mostly, we have to assume that it's legitimate, unless we are told otherwise.''

Even people who were honorary consuls could not be above suspicion, he said. ''Checks have to be made carefully,'' Khun Wisut added.

Immigration officers, local police, tourist police, Customs, the prisons department and the head of the Phuket Provincial Hall office were at the meeting.