'Mule' accounts proliferate

Police mull a 'kill switch' for customer accounts, delays for high-risk transfers and stricter verification by banks, writes Wassayos Ngamkham

- Wassayos Ngamkham

Pol Lt Gen Jirabhop Bhuridej, assistant national police chief and head of the Anti Online Scam Operation Center, explains the different types of 'mule accounts' being used by criminals. ROYAL THAI POLICE

(ROYAL THAI POLICE)

The term “mule account” — once obscure, now widely recognised — has become synonymous with financial crime in Thailand.

Known in Thai as Banchee Ma (literally, “horse accounts”), these bank accounts are essential tools for scam syndicates, money launderers, and call-centre gangs.

So pervasive is the problem that both police and banks have developed an entire vocabulary to describe the many forms mule accounts can take, testament to the growing sophistication of financial crime.

As scams surge, police have accelerated cooperation with commercial banks to control and dismantle these criminal accounts — now considered a serious social threat and a core infrastructure of organised fraud.

While mule accounts come in many forms, police have recently coined new internal terms-known mainly within detective circles to describe three particularly critical types.

According to a source at the AOC, the most alarming and dangerous development is the “corporate mule account”. The type has been emerging for about a year and represents a significant escalation in scam tactics.

In this scheme, criminals establish or purchase registered companies or partnerships solely to open bank accounts in a corporate name.

The corporate status creates an illusion of legitimacy, convincing victims that they are conducting business with a real company. In reality, these accounts are used to receive proceeds of fraud or to launder money - replacing the individual accounts scammers once relied on.