More people could face frozen bank accounts as authorities widen investigations into transfers linked to mule accounts, in an effort to recover money for scam victims, the Bank of Thailand (BoT) has warned.
Daranee Saeju, BoT assistant governor in charge of consumer protection, said on Saturday that numerous accounts had already been frozen as the Anti-Online Scam Operation Centre (AOC), together with commercial banks, intensified operations to trace and return stolen funds.
"Only accounts that received money from mule accounts have been frozen. The AOC and commercial banks are expanding their probe into financial transactions to retrieve funds connected with mule accounts and return as much money as possible to affected victims," Ms Daranee explained.
She acknowledged that the measures could impact more people as the investigations progress.
According to Ms Daranee, the BoT has discussed the issue with the AOC and commercial banks, and they have tentatively agreed to adjust procedures for freezing and unfreezing accounts in order to reduce the impact on innocent account holders. Further talks were scheduled for Sunday, and new measures could be introduced immediately afterwards, she said.
She said the central bank investigated the incident and found that it stemmed from two causes.
The first involved a technical error on Sept 1 when some banks failed to update end-of-day transactions, leaving some accounts showing outdated balances.
This was corrected the following day, and the banks were instructed to compensate affected customers and put in place measures to prevent a recurrence.
The second occurred after police ordered banks to freeze suspected accounts linked to scams.
In some cases, the amount to be frozen exceeded the actual balance, causing the system to show negative figures.
The banks were asked to clarify such cases directly with customers.
Ms Daranee said freezing suspected accounts was vital for tracking and returning stolen funds to scam victims while stressing that authorities were working to improve the freezing and unfreezing procedures so scammers were dealt with effectively while ensuring ordinary customers were not affected.
She said agencies would speed up the release of funds for individuals found to be uninvolved in scams and urged customers to call its 1213 hotline for immediate assistance if their problem was not resolved by their banks.
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