Thread: Police nab loan shark suspects in Phetchaburi

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

Police accused Mr Narongsak of leading a loan shark gang.

Originally Posted by StrontiumDog

The gang issued the loans using money from a financier who lives in Uthai Thani.

Who is the real gang leader? Narongsak or the mysterious "financier". Stay tuned to this station. All will not be revealed.

Originally Posted by BobR

A few months age, the Government was talking about a special bank with assistance loans to the poor so they could pay off the loan sharks.

Jailing them, especially if they resort to threats or violence to collect payments sounds like a much better solution, although Thailand never changes and in the long run things will continue as they are.

The Thai cops will enforce the law... about the same time we see flocks of pigs flying

(Most likely the loan sharks are employed by the cops any way...)

Bangkok Post : Loan sharks defy crackdown

Loan sharks defy crackdown

Underground debts pile up over start of school term

• Published: 23/05/2011 at 12:00 AM
• Newspaper section: News

Loan sharks preying on low-income parents who borrowed from them to pay back-to-school expenses for their children are posing a headache for police.

Hundreds of parents nationwide are thought to have turned to underground lenders to cover their children's school expenses for the new term, which started last Wednesday.


Winai: Police should do more to help

Less than a week later, loan sharks are now busy collecting their debts.

Charging interest of up to 5% a month, loan sharks resort to threats, extortion, and physical assault to recoup their investments.

Pol Maj Gen Winai Thongsong, deputy commissioner of the Central Investigation Bureau and head of a newly established centre for cracking down on underground lenders, said the number of loan sharks is growing as they take advantage of the demand for their services.

The centre started blacklisting loan sharks from the beginning of the year.

It is also working on a database of loan shark activity.

Police can take action against loan sharks only when borrowers file a complaint.

Borrowers enter arrangements with lenders voluntarily, and police are reluctant to step in unless something goes wrong, such as when the borrower defaults or misses payments, and the lender starts resorting to threats or force to compel payment.

Pol Maj Gen Winai said police once regarded underground lending as a petty crime, but now take a more serious view of the activity, as the heavy debts which low-income people incur can ruin their lives.

The school reopening period was a busy time for loan sharks, he said. Demand for underground loans is also high over New Year and Songkran.

Police are keeping an eye on the better-known ones. No figures are available on how many arrests have been made.

Pol Maj Gen Winai said most loan sharks are highly organised, influential people who include politicians and state officials.



Lenders often work in teams that include brokers, money collectors and thugs. The brokers usually travel on motorcycles in search of customers at markets.

Thugs extort money from borrowers and assault those who cannot repay their debts.

"Thugs and gunmen disappear from some areas, only to re-emerge working for loan sharks because the money is so good," Pol Maj Gen Winai said.

Chanthaburi is among provinces where loan sharks are most active.

One major lender is known to have more than one billion baht in capital to run his business, and 100 staff. Most thugs in Chanthaburi work for him, said Pol Maj Gen Winai.

Almost 6,000 people are thought to work in the illegal lending business. Of them, 2,795 are lenders and the rest, money collectors and thugs.

Bangkok has the highest number of loan sharks (899) followed by Uthai Thani (578), Chai Nat (204), Chanthaburi (202) and Nakhon Ratchasima (197).

As many as 1.18 million people nationwide have borrowed from loan sharks over the past few years, with Bangkok having the largest number of debtors, followed by Surin, Buri Ram, Nakhon Ratchasima, and Si Sa Ket provinces.

The government has helped settle the loan-shark debts of 440,000 people through refinancing schemes with state banks.

Thanai Aphichatseni, deputy chief of the centre which cracks down on underground lending, said police should do more to crack down on loan sharks.

"If the police do nothing, the number of illegal money lenders will grow quickly," he said.

In November last year, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said illegal money-lending posed an obstacle to the government's plan to bolster the economy.

"Illegal money lending is not just a personal or a family problem," he said.

"It is also related to national security, law and order, law enforcement, underground influence, violence and crime."

The government launched a scheme to free the poor from the clutches of loan sharks.

Under the scheme, about 1 million households were to be offered soft loans with a limit of 200,000 baht each to pay off loan sharks.

Six government banks joined the scheme, offering an annual interest rate of 12% in the first three years.

The Government Savings Bank, however, would offer a special rate of 0.75% per month, or 9% per year, for the duration of the scheme.

Under the law, lenders can charge no more than 15% a year.

Originally Posted by Rigger

So does that mean I shouldnt loan money to people and take there land papers as I know they will never have the money to pay it back.

Take gold as collateral. Works like a charm. They always repay. (And better to charge well below the rip-off interest rates.)

Yeah?
What's your rate/system?

Phetchaburi, nice town but...Phetchaburi = Gang Land big time and in that respect certainly not a nice place to live.