Nakhon Ratchasima Arrests Former District Officers and Officials in False Birth Certificate Scam Involving Over 50 Chinese and Myanmar Nationals
Police arrested three government officials in Nakhon Ratchasima for issuing false birth certificates to over 50 Chinese and Myanmar nationals, exposing a scheme where demolished houses were used as fake residential addresses.
On May 2, 2569, authorities reported significant progress in a case involving false birth registrations and fraudulent birth certificates issued to Chinese and Myanmar nationals totaling over 50 individuals in Nakhon Ratchasima Province. On May 1, 2569, officials arrested three government employees under warrant: a Phothiklong Subdistrict Municipality employee who served as a senior registry officer, a former district chief of Huai Thaling District, and a former administrative officer from the same district. Early morning on May 2, 2569, the CIB police transported the three suspects from Nakhon Ratchasima to the Anti-Money Laundering Office (AMLO) for interrogation, with the national DOPA N.I.C.E. task force participating.
The case originated from a joint operation called "Dragon Scale Reversal" launched on April 29, 2569, by the Department of Interior's anti-registry security task force (DOPA N.I.C.E.), working with the Anti-Cybercrime Center (ACSC), the Royal Thai Police, and related agencies. They uncovered an international crime network that hired Thai nationals to register false marriages and fraudulently certify Chinese children, resulting in two cases with six suspects.
Investigators initially tracked a scammer network connected to visa facilitation brokers serving Chinese clients. They discovered a suspicious child holding both a Chinese passport and a Thai birth certificate. Upon investigation, DOPA N.I.C.E. found the child's name registered at a house in Huai Thaling District, Nakhon Ratchasima. When checking population registration records, officials discovered dozens of children with Chinese and Myanmar mothers had resided at two specific addresses in the district. Field verification revealed both houses had been demolished long ago.
Hospital inquiries confirmed no actual births were recorded, and interviews with Thai nationals listed as fathers denied paternity. The municipal registry employee confessed to falsely using Thai male names and hospital credentials to illegally issue birth certificates granting children Thai nationality through their putative fathers. The case also involved falsification of registry records including names of parents and children's ages by district office personnel.
This constitutes official corruption involving false birth registrations allowing foreign nationals' children to obtain both Thai and foreign birth certificates, with fraudulent registry alterations confirmed for 13 individuals per case record. On April 20, 2569, the Department of Interior filed a complaint with the Anti-Corruption and Misconduct Bureau.
