The citizenship-for-sale scheme is nothing new in Thailand.
The Thai ID-for-sale racket has existed for decades. The fraud typically involves corrupt officials altering the household records of deceased Thai citizens whose deaths were never officially registered, allowing foreign buyers to assume their identities.
Yet those tricks pale beside recent reports of the so-called "Por Thip" scam, in which Thai men are allegedly paid to falsely claim paternity on birth certificates so that newborn children of foreign parents can obtain Thai citizenship.
The shocking case emerged last week when police arrested staff at a private hospital in Thon Buri district, a registrar from the district office and a Thai man accused of posing as the father of a Chinese baby born at the hospital.
The scheme was both crafty and deeply deceptive. Investigators allege that hospital staff offered Thai citizenship to Chinese parents in exchange for "tea money". According to police, the hospital staff worked with a district registrar to issue a Thai birth certificate for the child of a Chinese couple who came to the hospital for delivery.
Police and the Ministry of Public Health are now investigating whether the hospital's executives knew about the citizenship-for-sale operation.
This case may be only the tip of the iceberg. Investigators are examining five private hospitals in Bangkok. Authorities estimate there could be more than 100 "Por Thip" cases, and the real number may be far higher.
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt is right to order a review of birth certificates issued by district offices in Bangkok over the past 10 years. Governor Chadchart must remain decisive, and any officials found to have been involved must face severe penalties.
The Ministry of Public Health must inspect the hospitals under suspicion without fear or favour.
Several of them are said to be public companies backed by wealthy investors. The ministry must not hesitate to impose the full weight of the law, including revoking the licences of hospitals found to have participated in such a fraudulent and unethical scheme.
The "Por Thip" operation is not simply another citizenship-for-sale racket. Police uncovered it while investigating a Chinese national accused of laundering 70 billion baht in Thailand and transferring assets to three children who held Thai nationality even though their mother was not Thai.
In one case, investigators found that a nominal father listed on a birth certificate was also a shareholder in a proxy company that won concessions to build public infrastructure projects in Thailand.
If left unchecked, such services could pose a serious threat to national security. Thai citizenship gives these children access to rights and opportunities that could later be exploited by criminal networks seeking influence over business, public administration or politics.
The government must therefore treat this as a major national security issue. It should investigate all suspected fraudulent birth certificates, revoke Thai nationality where it was obtained illegally, prosecute the Thai accomplices involved and take appropriate legal action against any foreign nationals who participated in the scheme.
If Thailand fails to stamp out this citizenship-for-sale racket, the consequences could be severe for the integrity of its nationality system and public institutions.
