Crackdown on illegal imports of luxury vehicles
The Office of the Public Sector Anti Corruption Commission (PACC) has warned that it is cracking down on illegal imports of luxury cars, encroachment on coastal area land, and bogus loan deals in connection with the Ua Arthorn housing project.
“The PACC will root out graft violations via the crackdown on the three major targets,” PACC secretary-general Dutsadee Arayawuth said yesterday.
Dutsadee said some 100 graduates returning from England were suspected of being involved in a scam to evade import tariffs for luxury cars.
The graduates falsely declare ownership of a vehicle to qualify for a personal allowance to bring back their property at concessional tax rates, he said. Upon their return home and clearing customs, the luxury cars are sold in the markets. The illegally imported cars would be 10- to 20-per-cent cheaper that those brought in under normal import tariffs.
In one case, the authorities exposed a graduate who had allowed a car dealer to use his name to falsify the records of an imported vehicle which was brand new, but was declared as having been in his possession for two years to qualify for a lower tax bracket.
Regarding land encroachment in coastal areas, PACC said a number of land and local officials in charge of issuing land documents were rotating assignments within specific offices for pricey plots on the coastline along the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea.
The PACC suspected the officials might have been involved in a scam to falsify land records to enable encroachment on mangrove reserves and public plots to gain possession and ownership.
The PACC will recruit and develop in-house skills on aerial land survey to root out scams that falsify land records.
The damage resulting from bogus loans for the housing project is estimated at Bt6 billion. The main suspect is a defunct company, President Agri Trading, which PACC says falsified records on housing loans granted by nine state- and commercial banks to bogus home owners to cover up its financial shortfalls incurred from rice exports.
