Police Colonel Chatchapundakan, a cybercrime enforcer, confirmed that in the Bum Panadda case, freezing all accounts is necessary until the victims' funds are recovered. He also acknowledged that this affects innocent parties, and relevant agencies are swiftly seeking measures to support and ease the resulting hardship.
On 19 Feb 2026 GMT+7, Police Major General Chatchapundakan Klayklung, Deputy Commander of the Cyber Crime Suppression Division, together with Police Major General Siriwat Deepho, Commander of Cyber Crime Suppression Division 1, addressed the case involving Bum Panadda Wongpudi a well-known actress and volunteer, whose foundation's bank account numbers were used by fraudsters to deceive victims. This led to the freezing of the foundation's bank accounts and extended to Bum Panadda's personal accounts.
Police Major General Chatchapundakan affirmed that this measure is for safety, aiming to prevent the victims' money from being further transferred and becoming untraceable. In this case, authorities were able to track and freeze funds to fully recover the victims' money.
The measure involves suspending all accounts of suspects identified through ID card-linked accounts. He admitted that this approach also impacts innocent account holders whose accounts are frozen. Relevant agencies have been rushing to find measures to support and relieve innocent parties, aiming to unlock their accounts as quickly as possible. However, innocent individuals must come forward to verify their innocence with authorities to expedite the unlocking process. In Bum Panadda's case, efforts are underway to promptly unlock her accounts.
Police Major General Siriwat explained that the situation affecting Bum Panadda represents a new fraud method where scammers use an organization's account numbers to deceive victims, building trust so that victims are then persuaded to transfer money to personal accounts instead.
This measure affecting Bum Panadda is called the SR03 freeze, a coordinated operation involving the Anti-Money Laundering Office, the Thai Bankers' Association, the Bank of Thailand, and the police. It is designed to stop victims' money from being passed along through layers of mule accounts.
The measure focuses mainly on black and dark-gray mule accounts, especially those with victim complaints, which banks freeze immediately, including other bank accounts owned by the same individual. Authorities admit that this may cause issues for innocent account holders, so they have put in place support measures to alleviate distress by unlocking accounts. However, the account holder must explain and prove their innocence to authorities before the unlocking process can proceed.